Gambits and Paws
by Geuse
Summary: Jaune accepts a challenge. All he need do is care for someone's dog over the weekend, and Yang will match his pay if he pulls through. There is, however, a catch; it's Raven Branwen's dog, and soon enough, the dare is a forgotten of the past, as Jaune finds himself dragged into family matters, typical high-school affairs, and... dog drama? Okay, maybe the last one isn't so bad.
1. Maiden

**/ - **A different story, but an idea I thought fun. 'Butterflies Effect' is - apologies - currently on hold, because I don't know where it's meant to be going. But I can tell you it isn't dead, and I'm working to solve it. I hope this story is worth your while, and worth attention away from the aforementioned (though, it isn't White Knight... sorry).

No MILF-hunter Jaune in this. Sorry again. Normal Jaune only.

This story is an AU.

Hope you enjoy, and Merry Christmas.

* * *

Jaune didn't know why he was doing this.

_'302 Hal Road'_

Firstly, he was used to dogsitting smaller, more timid dogs. Secondly, he had taken an offer from Yang, which, as told by his experience with her, never came to be anything good.

_'302 Hal Road'_

Thirdly, he had never dogsat for someone's relative before. The danger with that was that if he were to bomb this post, then Yang wouldn't let it drop for atleast a week. Then - if Jaune had been listening correctly to Ruby's explanation of her family tree - nor would Yang's uncle (Ruby's 'uncle'); who Jaune hadn't spoke to very much, but from the amount he had, knew, at times, exuberated the same schadenfreude personality as Yang.

Oh, and he was his literature teacher. Did Jaune mention that?

_'302 Hal Road'_

Yang had told Jaune that her name was Raven. That was it. Well, that she was her birth mother too. But that really was it. Well, and also that the dog was nothing like Zwei. But that _really _was it.

So, no pressure, Jaune. Just dogsitting for Yang's mom, whom he had never met, and would have to explain how he knew that she needed a dogsitter for this weekend - which meant having to explain how he knew her daughter without sounding like a casanova. Which he was not.

"Three-zero-two." Jaune stopped in his stride and, looking up from the gold-numbered house sign, gazed at the building. Like the others across the vast street, it was a sizeable and modern fully-detached bungalow, donning oak walls and a roof that was flat and metal, with a shiny polish decorating the exterior. Along the walls, several wall-height windows - which were cloaked by closed curtains - sat in symmetrical order, and the door, that sat in a small cavity, was a firm, brushed steel design, with an ironically high glass view at the top. It was surrounded by a healthy portion of grassy space, and from what Jaune had seen when walking along the street, it had a similarly large backyard aswell.

Jaune clutched his phone in his hand. He _was_ here, this was definitely the place - 302 Hal Road - so all he need do now was...

Well, knock on the door. And say hello.

_'Hi, I'm Jaune. Your daughter-'_

_'Hi, I'm Jaune. Yang told me-'_

_'Hi, I'm Jaune. I heard you needed a dogsitter-'_

_'Hi, I'm Jaune. I heard you needed someone to look after your dog?'_

Yes. That would do. Uninstrusive, polite, relaxed. The perfect introduction - per Weiss' advice on introductions.

Jaune took meager steps towards the closed door, striding across the clean stone path that stretched forwards. Once he had reached the door, he raised his closed hand in preparation.

Alright, he would knock in three...

Two...

One...

Knock.

...

Had he knocked loud enough?

Wait, there was a doorbell - a small, translucent cuboid with a centered bronze button. He should've rang the doorbell.

No, he decided against it. It was too late now, if he did that he'd sound desparate. It would be better to wait until she answers the door, no reason to be impatient or intrusive.

...

Okay, there was no-one coming. Which was fine! She was probably asleep or something... at five o'clock, in the afternoon.

He would come back tomorrow. Simple.

...

No, he couldn't come back tomorrow. This was the only chance to ask. He hadn't found any more alluring work like it so far, because Yang had promised to match what Jaune charged if he actually did it. That was _twice _the earning, and if he were to get his pay for this, then he'd have plenty to splash for the Christmas holiday, which started two weeks from tomorrow.

...

Okay. He'd knock once more. Just once.

Three...

Two...

Before Jaune reached one, with the harsh snap of a lock, and the shifting crash of two metal bars, the brushed steel door opened, and a woman of equally intimidating nature peered around it's open side.

Raven, conveniently named so, had clearly not taken to being very active today from what Jaune could make out. The long, night-black locks that dressed her head and shoulders, and delicately adorned her face like a flowerbed, was scattered and unkempt. She had piercing scarlet eyes that sat with lax marks of fatigue about them, and her lips were fresh and liberal in expression. She wore a starkly old and worn sports jumper that was decorated with the signs of lifelong possession, and, to Jaune's surprise, adorned with the cursive-written words 'Beacon Maidens'.

The school sports team.

Jaune didn't check what else she was wearing, because he was polite, and he wasn't here to ogle Yang's mom below the waist. However, Jaune could definitely conclude it was her; he could certainly see the resemblance to Yang. The face, the hair, the... well...

Though, instead of a mocking look of schadenfreude on her face, he found a mocking look of pity. Yang must've gotten it from her father, because her mother was somewhat of a dispositional antithesis to Yang.

And Qrow, her brother (if Jaune was remembering correctly)... well Qrow must have learnt it.

She took Jaune for a postman, or something alike, and spoke sleepily. "The doorbell doesn't work."

Jaune froze for a moment, and instead of answering with his rehearsed line, he blabbered whatever came to mind. "I didn't ring the doorbell."

"You didn't?" The woman opened the door slightly further, her scarlet eyes narrowing. His rebuttal had seemingly woken her up.

He shook his head, nearly crushing the phone in his hand. "I knocked."

Her expression remained the same. "Just then?"

He nodded.

"Right..." She looked at him in disinterest.

Curiosity pooled in Jaune's mind, and he spoken again. Without thinking. "How did you know I was here?"

She gestured with her head to the top left corner of the door's cavity. Jaune looked up.

There, sat omnisciently, was a shining new, glass-frame CCTV Camera. It was blinking red, and felt like it stared into Jaune's soul.

He looked back at her. "And you were just watching that?"

Something clearly snapped, and the look of patience that had clinged to the woman's face was now lost. "What are you doing at my door?"

"Uh..." His rehearsal came into play. "I heard you needed-"

Conveniently, a tapping scratch of movement emanated from down the warmly lit corridor that was adorned with picture frames, whose contents Jaune couldn't make out. The echo of a harsh bark sounded the approach of a dog.

"That."

The woman, who had turned to face her dog, leered back at Jaune in puzzlement. "That?"

He scratched the back of his head to calm his nerves. "Yeah, I... I heard you needed someone to look after him... her..."

"Her."

"Her."

The woman rustled a hand through her messed locks of black. "Who did you hear this from?"

Jaune was told the relationship between Yang and her mom was somewhat touchy, yet sufficiently intact that Yang didn't have a warplan against her birth mother. He'd have to hope that mentioning Yang then, as a third-party stranger himself, who had just turned up in her CCTV, wasn't going to lose him the job. "Yang... told me."

Surprise flashed across the scarlet irises, and the sharp leer softened slightly. "Yang?"

He nodded again.

"I presume you're a classmate?"

"Yes. Just a classmate." A cough. "Mate from class." He laughed reassuringly, though it buckled and fell into nervousness and his cheeks flashed an unflattering red in embarrassment.

The surprise in her eyes was replaced with pity, but a tempered smile of amusement grew. "Right." She tapped her foot against the wooden floor and whistled, and almost instantly, a surprisingly lean and bright-eyed dog, which looked closely to a German Shepherd, appeared next to her right leg with a darting sprint. The dog sat attentively, panting in joyful anticipation. Raven entertained the boy's offer. "And why am I choosing you to look after her?"

He parried her question. "Have you had offers from anyone else?"

The pity was now replaced with a hint of embarrassed anger, and the smile disappeared. "No." She tapped her fingers against the door. "I haven't _asked_ anyone, yet."

He nodded, and pushed again. "Okay, well I can do fifty for a day. " The balance of the conversation flipped in Jaune's favour, and, jumping on it, he offered the piece of paper with his phone number on it. "I can do as much as needed each day, considering it's the weekend."

The paper hung in the air for a mome- wait, no, no... she snatched it from him quite quickly actually, and glanced at the number. The firm, raven-haired woman sighed, and ceded that she may as well consider his offer. He was straightforward enough, and a friend of Yang's... apparently. That, and she wanted this over quickly so she could go back to lounging. "Fine. Don't get your hopes up..." A gentle swipe of her foot had the dog return inside the house. "...but I'll consider it."

He swallowed in relief, and gestured at the wandering dog with a smile, in an attempt to soften the mood. "She's a... German Shepherd?"

Okay, she was really missing leisure time here, thank-you-go-away. "German Shepherd-Border Collie. Mix-breed." She placed her hand on the back of the door, glaring at her visitor.

Jaune stared back, and couldn't think of what he had to say.

She raised her brow in suggestion. "Go. Go home."

He jumped slightly in place. "Right! Right, sorry." He went to turn around, smiling warmly. "My name's Jau-"

The door closed with a firm slam, and Jaune was left with only himself and a CCTV Camera to bear witness to his existence. "Right."

That wasn't so bad.

* * *

"Holy shit!" Another cackle sounded, and the bouncing cup of orange juice nearly spilt over with a flip. "I can't believe you _actually... _actually went and..." The sentence collapsed, and the cackle grew into a breathless wheeze.

Jaune, who had endured the laughter after confirming that he had, infact, gone to Yang's mom and offered to dogsit for her, sat awkwardly, clenching his chocolate bar in embarrassment.

Yang took a breath. "I didn't actually _mean _it. The dog was probably just going to come live with us for the weekend." She sniggered. "Yet nothing stops the Arc spirit, am I right, Jaune?" The blonde's words curled into yet another laugh, and she planted her head against the table.

Ruby, who didn't take Yang's behaviour kindly, protested against her sister. "Hey! Jaune did great." She frowned, looking to Jaune and muttering reassuringly. "You did great. Don't listen to her."

The boy nodded, but Yang continued. "Could you imagine... could you imagine him turning up at Raven's door... and... and offering to dogsit-!" She fell back into what was probably her tenth cackle. The other students who had sat cautiously at the end of their table earlier - caution was a suitable behaviour around Yang - had lost their patience in the barrage of laughter, and now stood up to find somewhere else to seat.

"You told him to! He's dogsat before - he dogsat Zwei." She planted a spoon in her bowl of jelly. "He did a good thing and offered a service. That's not bad!"

The blonde gestured at Jaune, _still _laughing. "They're complete opposites! He was probably wetting himself!"

Jaune ground his jaw in frustration. The entire canteen could probably hear them now, and he didn't need anymore reasons to look a fool. "I was just asking for a job, Yang. That_ you_ offered to me."

The napalm girl caught her breath, resting a hand on her chest to relax herself. She was on the brink of crying, and her cheeks were flamed red in hysteria. "Oh, Jauney, you are the best, sometimes, you know that?"

Jaune didn't respond, and fidgeted with the chocolate bar in his hands.

Yang wiped the newborn tears from her eyes with the back of a hand, calming herself in what small sympathy she had in the moment. "Aw, I love you really, Jaune."

She noticed the dilutely solemn look on the boy's face She rolled her eyes and rested her chin in a hand. "I'm kidding with you. I'm impressed. Just find it kinda funny, that's all."

He raised an eyebrow. "Kinda?"

She mused. "Well, maybe a bit more than kinda. But, hey! Look on the bright side, Jaune, now I know you've got balls."

Ruby quickly forgot about Yang's unpleasant behaviour, and now nodded in support. "Yeah, even dad's kinda scared of her sometimes."

Jaune looked at the two in concern. "Scared?" He snapped a square of chocolate from the bar. "Isn't that kinda worrying?"

Yang scoffed. "Nah." She shrugged. "They're on good terms. It's like how you're scared of me, you trust me - y'know, you know I'd never go too far or actually hurt you - but you still find me intimidating."

He bit down on the square of chocolate. "You're not intimidating, you're just frustrating sometimes."

"Yeah, so you're _technically_ scared of me."

"Yeah - because you always embarrass me."

She rolled her eyes. "I don't embarrass you."

"I dropped that rack of test tubes in Biology because you smacked me on the back!"

"That was Blake."

"It was you, Yang. Blake was setting up _your _equipment. "

She feigned innocence. "It was a pat on the back."

He took yet another bite of chocolate, and sat for a moment in contemplation. The irritation of Yang washed away as his thoughts shifted to his job opportunity. While Jaune had, in all fairness, only asked Raven yesterday, it _was_ a Friday and nearing the end of lunch, and he was yet to receive any indication of whether she had actually 'considered' his offer. He was betting a lot on the potential pay, and he didn't want the Christmas fantasies he had dreamt up the night before to fall away from a lack of spends.

Even if he wasn't needed, a simple message of thanks wouldn't hurt. The weekend was now only a matter of hours away.

The screech of a bell disrupted his thoughts, and the three set off for next lesson. Yang grinned, swinging her bag over her shoulder and once again jabbing Jaune lightly in jest. "Biology next, Jauney." She sang in tease.

Give him strength.

* * *

"Jame?"

Raven had never heard of such an inexplicable name before, and that was coming from her, whose brother was named after a bird. She, of course, was not named after a bird, she insisted; she was named after the illustrious colour, 'Raven' just happened to also be the name of a bird.

Was it a male variation of Jane? Or a recharacterisation of the name Jamie?

She examined the crumpled yellow post-it note closer, and upon further inspection of the scrawled writing, found that the gap between the 'a' and the 'm' may actually be a 'u', awkwardly fitted between an 'a' and an 'n'.

So his name was, 'Jaune'? Like the French? For yellow?

Imagine being named after a colour, poor boy. It was fortunate that Raven was named after such a magnificient bird.

It was Friday now, and her weekend-long business trip (which was very much so a business trip, because Raven Branwen was currently not fortunate enough in life to be playing with double entendres) was closing in on her. She would normally ask Tai to look after the dog, but the last time she had done that was nearing on two years ago, and she'd gotten cold feet since then. Like she was weaker.

No, she wasn't weaker - far from it. She just didn't need it in her life; she'd be independent and ask a third-party service, she wouldn't burden Tai and Summer (and Zwei) with her own dog. Of the third-party services she had asked, Jaune was, in all fairness, currently her best option.

He was also her only option, because she hadn't asked anyone else, and even when she had gone grocery shopping this early morning, she had failed to stop in her stride to check any advertisements for dogsitters. She also hadn't visited the dog shelter, which required reserved booking... so that was out of the window.

She didn't know if leaving her prized companion... only companion with a seventeen-year old boy who she had only met for five minutes yesterday, and only knew about her predicament because she had unintentionally implied it to Yang by text, was a good idea.

Yang, annoyingly, was very good at decyphering her mother, no matter how much Raven tried to insist the contrary. Even reverse psychology failed her.

She already had the number logged, named as 'boy', given she hadn't taken much care to figuring out what his name out at first. What was it the cost?

Forty...

No, no it was fifty, because the halfway of zero and a hundred was ingrained in her mind as a satisfying play of symmetry. Yes, it was fifty a day, which would bring it to one-hundred for the weekend.

While it was logically a less certain solution than leaving the task to a trained dog-handler, or a shelter, she did have the advantage that Jaune knew Yang, and in turn would, presumably, know Ruby. Which meant Maiden - her dog, hello? - would probably end up in familiar hands if Jaune really had any problems, and he'd be able to get advice from people who knew her; what food she liked, what toys she liked, where she liked to go on walks.

She nodded to herself, sighing. "Fine." Her fingers took to the keyboard, and she typed away a draft message.

_'Hi, it's Raven, messaging about your offer. I'll accept fifty a day. If you could come round tomorrow at midday, then you can meet Maiden and I'll give you all the details. Thanks, Raven.'_

She pondered with the message for a moment, and the steadfast soul of Raven inside her died little at how tender she was being. She'd even said her name twice, who was to say he shouldn't address her by a title? He didn't have the liberty of using her first name.

_'Hi, it's Mrs-'_

No.

_'Hi, it's Ms. Branwen-'_

Okay, now she sounded like a teacher. This was ridiculous. All she had to do was write out a message, the name didn't matter.

_'Hi, it's Raven. You're hired. Come tomorrow at twelve to meet Maiden.'_

Her typing fingers paused. It was brief, indifferent. There was certainly no emotion in it. Delivered the point effectively.

It would do.

And...

Send.

* * *

_'what did you get?'_

A pause permutated, then a ellipses of typing, and soon text.

_'got a B'_

Ruby, in her excellent ability to type at near the speed of sound, replied quickly.

_'better luck next time jaune'_

She relished in her achievement.

_'you're in the year below me. your tests are easier'_

Maybe, but...

_'yeah but you have an extra year of experience'_

Means a lot.

_'in harder stuff and longer tests'_

Not important.

_'still beat you'_

Relishing.

_'by one grade'_

Still higher.

_'got an A, i win'_

Another pause permutated between the two, but the space wasn't filled by an ellipses, or a surprisingly quick response. Despite the shift, Ruby wasn't worried that she had insulted Jaune to any degree; sure, he was a soft soul, but he wasn't a weakling like Yang seemed to think.

_'oh shit'_

The ding of a message brought Ruby back to reality, and she quickly responded.

_'what?'_

Jaune was quick in response.

_'guess who just texted me'_

Uh?

_'dunno'_

Another pause, and Ruby presumed she was expected to have known the answer, which was a tad embarrassing.

_'raven'_

Oh... oh indeed.

_'wait for real?'_

_'yeah. she said that i'm hired.'_

_'you're not joking?'_

_'i'm being serious'_

_'photos'_

Ruby giggled to herself and bit her lip in a contained grin. She couldn't believe it, this was great.

After a moment had passed, a large block of media came through on her phone. A photo.

_'Raven_

_Hi, it's Raven. You're hired. Come tomorrow at twelve to meet Maiden.'_

Ruby's giggle thrashed into a laugh, and she jumped to respond. It was real, Raven was the estranged mother, and Maiden was the dog. Jaune had got the job.

_'oh wow. so proud of you'_

_'thanks mom'_

Ruby's laugh jolted with momentum again, and she looked up from her slouched position on the couch to search for her sister, though making sure to not wake a sleeping Zwei, seated in her lap, in her movement.

"Yang?" She called out. It reverberated throughout the near interior of the house, but garnered no response. She turned to her fellow lounger. "Mom, where's Yang?" Her mother, who was just as equally slouched on the other couch in the room and fiddling with the batteries and wiring in the back of the TV remote, looked at Ruby.

The short-haired woman looked up. "Oh, she's in the kitchen with dad." She smiled, though dropped a battery in her distraction, and the loud crash woke Zwei, who jumped from Ruby's lap and dashed towards the kitchen in the wake of hunger. Which made Ruby's life easier.

Ruby beamed. "Thanks, mom." She climbed from her seat, and dusted away the near miniscule amount of hair from Zwei that was scattered across her t-shirt and joggers.

"No problem, sweetie." She smiled back, then clambered for the dropped battery before it rolled under the couch, like a guilty child found messing around with something they weren't meant to have.

* * *

"And what happened to training today?"

Yang shrugged and took a bite of apple, swinging her legs back and forth as she sat on a clean kitchen surface. "Coach is sick. Like, hospital sick." Another bite of apple, and she spoke with her mouth full. "Pneumonia."

Tai, unaffected by Yang's lacking manners - as Weiss would put it, scrubbed a cloth around a bowl with ease, and flipped it over under the tap. "I could've trained you today."

She looked at him in jestful doubt. "I'm seventeen now, dad, I don't want to go away for elder abuse."

The man scoffed, placing the clean bowl on a steel drying rack. "You think you could beat me, do you?"

She nodded in confidence, raising her arms up in emphasis. "You haven't done a slight of boxing since I was born."

"Yeah, but I remember how to throw and block a punch." He grinned in reassurance to himself.

Yang narrowed her eyes in faux assessment. "Yeah... but can you get those joints into a roundhouse kick?" She made a charade of pain and discomfort, making a creaking noise to mock her father, a strong grin on her face.

He threw the cloth into the sink. "Okay, well I ain't that old, Yang. And that's kickboxing you're getting into. Your coach must have hit you real hard in the head if you've forgotten the difference."

She frowned her brow. "Very funny. I meant kickboxing." She threw the apple from hand to hand. "He teaches me kickboxing, _you_ taught me kickboxing. You forget about that with age?"

"No. I did not, my memory is fine." He thinned his lips. "You _said _boxing."

"It was the first word that came to mind, I just said whatever - meant to say kickboxing."

He leant back against the sink. "So we'd kickbox then?"

"Yup." She took another bite of apple. "And I'd still beat you."

Tai shrugged. Before he could speak again, a dashing ball of fluff ran in and assaulted the dog food cupboard with his front paws, a vicious pant of excitement emanating from him. "Look who's here."

In his wake came Ruby, who was tapping away on her phone. She gestured at Zwei. "He just woke up, so he's gonna be _really_ hungry."

"And I'm the one that has to feed him?"

"Yup, I'm showing Yang something."

Tai only muttered to himself. "You two are so lazy sometimes."

The blonde, taking another bite of apple, looked to her sister. "Huh? What's happened?"

Ruby only smirked, tapping on the photo Jaune had sent her to bring it up in full picture. She hopped onto the surface next to Yang, and held the phone infront of her.

Yang's violet eyes darted across the screen, and she read through the text.

_'Raven'_

Oh!

_'Hi, it's Raven.'_

Oh.

_'You're hired.'_

_..._oh.

_'Come tomorrow at twelve to meet Maiden.'_

...oh grief.

"Oh my God." She looked at Ruby with unbeckoned mirth in her eyes, and contained the rupturing fire in her chest. "Is that _real_?"

Ruby only nodded, containing a laugh. "I'm pretty certain. He got the job."

Yang cracked into laughter, and the image of Jaune co-operating with Raven only kicked her into hysteria again.

Tai, who was now further curious on what exactly this 'thing' was, stood up from feeding Zwei, and turned around. "What? What's going on?"

Yang shook her head and contained herself, taking a breath. "Nothing, it's nothing, really."

Tai slumped. "Ruby?"

"It's nothing. Promise." The rosy girl beamed in reassurance, giggling.

Tai tongued his teeth in frustration and decided not to pressure his girls further. Oh, what it was to be young.

* * *

Jaune knew exactly why he was doing this.

The news had been a wholehearted delight to him. It was now an hour after Raven had confirmed he'd landed the post, and he was still buzzing from the moment. This was a lot more than perfect, given his thought up fantasies of Christmas spending were no longer at threat of crumbling. A great deal of elation had blossomed in Jaune's chest, a great deal more than he thought was possible for simply getting a job dogsitting.

Jaune wins this one, Yang, for he has come out top, and come out a great deal richer too (theoretically, if she holds her promise).

Saturday, twelve o'clock, three-oh-two Hal Road.

A Christmas miracle.


	2. First Saturday

**/ - **Second chapter, posted sooner than often because it was already half done. The reviews are very appreciated. As for the deal of the story point, there isn't really an overlying 'moral' to this story, it's just an AU story about Jaune dogsitting, and the events in between; Maiden won't cause the Fall of Beacon or anything, it's more a slice of life. Character list has been switched about and there's a pairing, which you can see, and if there were more than two category slots available, there would be more in there, but I think they're the most significant for now.

Hope you enjoy.

* * *

As a locational reference, Raven's house was a train ride, a bus, and a ten minute walk away from Beacon School. It was situated in the more solitudinal, spacious expanse of the region - compared to where Jaune and most of the people he knew lived. Apart from Weiss obviously, who lived in the northern locale, which was effectively just a district of villas and palaces.

The grass was greener around here - and he wasn't being metaphorical, it really was lusher and more nurtured, and he could see why it would be a dog's paradise. The local park was even comparable to a nature reserve, covered with dense forest, and a stretching plain in the centre, accompanied by a lake.

It was a sunny and breezy 11:56 morning, and he once more found himself outside 302 Hal Road. In the scarce Winter sun, the polished lining of the roof glared bright like a decorative glow, making the house look like an enshrined blessing from a holy deity. He supposed it wouldn't hurt in being slightly earlier than specified, so in a confident and hopeful stride, the newly employed Arc boy ventured towards the brushed steel door.

He recalled Thursday's events to himself to figure out the best way to operate the damn door. So the doorbell was broken, and he couldn't bet that she would be watching her CCTV this time. So it was knocking then, but louder this time.

The knock reverberated through the frame and back down his arm, and in anticipating silence, he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And soon, his patience was answered by something reassuring, yet not particularly helpful. A gleeful scamper of claws and a bark sounded on the other side of the door, it was so loud and clear that Jaune could tell that only the brushed steel structure was separating the two. Well, atleast Maiden was as excited as Jaune was for the occasion.

Above the darting of paws, he could make out the clacking thud of shoed footfalls. Finally.

A harsh snap of a lock.

The shifting crashes of two metal bars.

And a very different looking Raven opened the door.

"Jame." She shook her head in a quick motion of revision. "Jaune." Her expression remained indescribable, and she checked the clock that hung on the wall next to her. 11:58, not bad. "Come in."

He nodded and smiled reservedly, stepping over the outer frame of the door and into the warmly lit, comfortable corridor. Maiden, the dog of the moment, span round Jaune's legs with a series of happy breaths, nearly tripping him over in his motion.

Raven stood to the side and once Jaune was out of the way, closed the door. "She just gets excited around new faces." A single metal bar was shifted. "She won't maul you, or anything of the like."

He laughed and nodded. "No, I..." He rubbed the head of the dog in admiration, and she nuzzled into his palm. "...wasn't worried about that. Just most dogs aren't so..."

"Friendly." She finished his sentence, and wandered down the corridor, taking a right into an arched entrance that beared no door. Her voice rose as Jaune followed her, Maiden in his wake. "I was burdened with a friendly dog." The reserved and typically ungenial Raven was trying her best to be hospitable, it seemed.

He turned into the entrance, and was hit with the scent of pine, and the decorative grace of Raven's meticulously nurtured lounge room, which was a dress of modern oak, cold steel, and the occasional plating of marble. A wide television sat in the corner on a cabinet, adjacent to an electric fireplace, which was faced by two stretching velvet couches. A steel-glass coffee table sat in the middle of it all, with an ornate, charcoal rug underneath. Against the only visible wall-height window, cloaked by a curtain, was a decorated christmas tree.

To Jaune, it was all very dear for a single room. And a single person, of course.

"You can have a seat." Raven was staring at him in uncertainty.

Jaune nodded, moving from his static position in the entrance-way and sitting on the closest part of the couch next to him. Maiden, his apparent new best friend, jumped up onto the same couch, and sat patiently next to him.

Raven was looking into a wall-mounted mirror between the far couch, an array of tubes and pots sat infront of her on a small, waist-height wooden cabinet - it was makeup, Jaune knew, something he was surprisingly familiar with from his eight sisters. She held a rod of mascara in between two fingers, and spoke again, addressing his upcoming task. "About food..." She sealed the tube and placed it down on the cabinet below her, picking up another one. "She prefers wet food. She will eat dry food, but if you're going to give her dry, she needs water in another bowl alongside it."

Jaune nodded, scratching the top of Maiden's head, who closed her eyes. "Right."

She turned her head around to face Jaune, and gave him a stern glance. "A dental stick after the last meal of the day. No tidbits; steak, bacon, sausage. Just dog food, okay?"

Jaune was taken aback slightly by the sharp outline of her stern scarlet eyes, and coughed in his embarrassment, looking back to Maiden. "Uh, right." Raven was clearly taking her appearance seriously; must be an important trip, probably a business thing.

Raven returned to tend to her reflection. "Don't worry about baths or anything, I can do that when I get back." She pushed a strand of hair out of her face. "Kitchen, lounge, and bathroom only. That goes for the both of you."

Jaune nodded, and in his silence, and his stupidity, faced away from Maiden to look at Raven. This was pointless and inappropriate, of course, given she wasn't facing him, but the unmannered, hormonal side of him didn't mind it, apparently, and his curiosity got the better of him. She wore a black linen blazer with, from what he had seen earlier, a red velvet interior, against a plain white shirt and a short black tie. The base of the blazer was cut curved, and met a short and frilled charcoal skirt. Beyond that were knee-height flat-heeled boots, that, expectedly, were night black, and braced with black straps. She wasn't wearing tights, and the boots accentuated her long, snow-pale legs that seemed to-

"Jaune?"

The boy was struck out of his stupor, and the polite, more appropriate side of him snatched back control. "Yeah! Yeah... no baths and no bedrooms." He nodded quickly, and sat up awkwardly, he didn't remember wearing such tight jeans this morning.

The severe scarlet leer held itself in the reflection of the mirror for a moment, burning shame through him. Though, to Jaune's relief and restored breathing, it gave to pity and ceded soon enough with a roll of the eyes, returning to looking at itself. "The park's her favourite place. Don't take her to the lake though, or she'll run in and chase after the ducks."

He looked back at Maiden, who had a bright glow in her eyes. "Right." He raised a question. "Is the forest alright, with all the birds?"

Raven nodded. "She doesn't go after birds, only ducks." She placed down the final tube of pamper, and turned around to double-check the straps on her boots. "She doesn't think the ducks can fly, and doesn't remember that they fly away when we go back next time." A stretch of leather and click of a brace. "So it's just a cycle that I've given up on." She looked at Jaune, and spoke softly. "No lake."

"No lake."

From behind the couch, she hoisted up the handle of a suitcase he hadn't known was there, then pushed it back down to check it's functionality. "She's a clever soul. But if you really have any problems, you can ask Yang or Ruby, they know her well."

Jaune made a noise of understanding, and smiled at the panting dog next to him, whose tail was pulsing against the couch. Raven paused for a moment in relief; as uncaring as she often seemed, it was reassuring to see her only companion had taken warmly to her new minder for the weekend. She lifted the handle from her suitcase for use, and tilted it forwards for motion.

She walked towards the archway 'door'. "I won't be available to text or call. But I'm sure you'll manage."

Jaune reassured her. "Yeah, I'll be alright." Maiden stretched herself across his lap and mewed a noise of comfort, Jaune chuckled, and moved his hands to sit on her back. "And I'll ask Yang if I have any trouble."

Raven nodded, and an irrelevant thought for the future brewed in her mind. "Okay. I'll be back on Monday. There's a spare key in the kitchen cupboard for your use."

"Oh, right, thanks."

With that, the woman left through the archway exit, and once the noise of the opening and closing of a door sounded, Jaune looked to his new dog for the weekend. "Alright then."

* * *

The perfect plan for the perfect storm. After hearing indirectly that Jaune had landed the job, Yang had taken to committing herself to being there for the first working hours, because Maiden, her second favourite dog, and Jaune, her second favourite idiot, would be the perfect duette. She was hoping, at the very least, that it would be worth the harsh expenditure of both the train and the bus.

"Two-nine-eight." Last time she had checked, it was quarter past twelve, so Raven should probably have left by now, and Jaune should still be there... figuring out what to do with Maiden. "Two-nine-nine." She was an athletic dog, full of spur and energy. Jaune had dogsat Zwei before, a dog who was quite insistently mad sometimes, but Zwei was self-sufficient and a sleeper. Maiden was not. "Three hundred." And Raven was intimidating, and would probably strangle Jaune if something happened to Maiden. Tai and Summer weren't so intimidating - a deal more forgiving, and Ruby would be doing the strangling if something happened to Zwei. "Three-oh-one." Though, despite her jest, she knew Jaune wasn't incompetent - just a bit of a clutz, so she could just sit back and laugh, and not worry too much. "Three-oh-two." Here it was, the obnoxiously pristine bungalow that her mother had fled to.

But nevermind the angst for now, there was fun to be had.

* * *

Maiden had fallen asleep on his lap and showed no desire to move, so Jaune had taken to browsing through his phone. If there was nothing of necessity, then he could just relax, right? He was sure she would tell him somehow if there was something wrong, and with no distractions, he could idle for now.

And yet, fortune had a different idea, and his peace was disturbed by the piercing ring of the doorbell.

Raven. You conniving...

Before Jaune could settle the sting of deciet, Maiden jolted awake and barked gladly, jumping from his lap and darting riskily out of the lounge and down the corridor. Jaune clambered up in displeasure, and headed for the door. He doubted it was Raven, so it must have been an annoyingly late postman. Once he reached the brushed plate, he reached to yank the door-handle, but it froze halfway through the motion.

The key. Raven had locked the door on her way out, clearly. To the kitchen.

* * *

She could hear Maiden running around chaotically inside, and Raven's car wasn't anywhere in sight along the pavement, so Jaune must be in there.

What was he doing? Had he fallen asleep or something?

* * *

Right, he had the key.

Slotting it into the lock, he turned it with a healthy serving of force, but then it too froze in motion, and Jaune was left confused.

Was it the wrong key? He took it out, and examined the makeshift label on the plastic head of the thing.

'Front Door'

Okay, well it was the right key. As Jaune pondered, Maiden only picked up her excitement, and started to assault the door with her front paws.

Grief, how do you open the damn thing?

* * *

The door was being torn apart by Maiden, by the sounds of it, and the repeated movement of the door handle and sound of the insertion and removal of a key brought Yang to laughter.

He'd lost it, twenty minutes in.

* * *

He'd tried turning the key with both hands. Was Raven superhuman or something? How did this open?

He'd tried opening the door normally, to no avail. He thought, maybe, that it had already unlocked with the small movement of the key. But it hadn't and the steel door remained closed.

* * *

She took to trying to help him, and turned the handle on the outside of the door as a hint, holding it in place.

* * *

Shit. Oh shit. The person on the other side had turned the handle. What were they doing? Was it a serial killer?

It was Raven, wasn't it? She'd probably forgotten something. She seemed like the type of person to terrify someone who was struggling with a task.

In his shock, he took a hint.

He grabbed a hold of the door handle himself, and kept it pulled down, then, inserted the key into the lock. This time around, it turned full and snapped a noise of satisfaction. The door unlocked, and in frustration, Jaune pulled it open.

It wasn't Raven.

"Surprise!"

It was Yang. Who was understandably just the type of person to terrify someone who was struggling with a task aswell, considering they were mother and daughter.

Maiden sprinted out of the open door, and jumped her front paws up against Yang, with her tail thrashing madly. Unlike Jaune, she was apparently delighted to see their new visitor.

Yang leant down and scrubbed behind her ears in adoration, speaking with a fluffed tone. "Hello Maiden. Hello Maiden."

Jaune, unsure of the situation, spoke up over the debacle. "What are you doing here?"

The blonde looked up. "Well, officially, I'm here to support you." She stood up, and Maiden darted around her legs. "Unofficially, I'm here to watch you burn."

Jaune narrowed his eyes. "I'm not going to burn, Yang. All is well."

She crossed her arms. "You took... five(?) minutes to open the door."

He made an incredulous look. "Because your mom has a super-max prison door installed." He knocked the surface to emphasise his point, and a deep boom of vibration sounded. "It sounds blastproof."

"She likes to be safe." She glanced at Maiden, who was now sat in between the two and listening to the back and forth attentively. "How are you going with her?"

"She was asleep, until you arrived." He defended himself. "But, we're going for a walk now." A delighted bark sounded at the word, and Jaune winked at Maiden.

Yang smirked. "Ahem. No flirting with the dog." She checked behind the boy in tease. "You know where her lead is?"

He shifted in place, and turned around. No, no he did not, and when he examined the few shelves of the corridor, there was nothing in sight. "Uh..."

"Guess my mom didn't say?" She walked into the house and brushed past Jaune. "She's like that." The dog of the hour tailed her gleefully.

Jaune nodded, closing the door, and shifting a single metal bar. He followed the two. As Jaune walked through the corridor, he took notice to the picture frames along the walls; there was Yang as a child, Yang as a child, Maiden as a pup, Yang as a child, Ruby as a child, Yang as she is now, and Yang as a child. Jaune kept silent to himself, and considered the surprisingly expectable array. It made sense, obviously, that a mother would adorn nearly every picture frame with their daughter, but when he thought of the reserved, leering Raven, that hadn't come to mind as an expectation.

They continued down the corridor to the very end, then took another left through another doorless archway, into the clean and steel kitchen he had visited just earlier, which was as equally as dear as the lounge.

Yang opened a tin on the central surface, taking out two chocolate wafer sticks, and biting down on one. She turned to Jaune. "Want one?" He shook his head, and Yang shrugged in response. She walked to a row of cupboards and opened one, which contained a vast supply of dog munitions; leads, treats, tennis balls, toys, bags. She took a lead, a bag of treats, a ball, and two bags. Throwing the lead at Jaune, she grabbed a small plastic carrier bag from a spot enclosed between the bin and the fridge, and placed the remaining items inside.

Jaune caught the lead in his arms, and Maiden darted over to him and sat to attention. He examined the item. "Isn't there a... box thing?" The lead was simply a long, intricately crafted rope, with a connecting hook at the end for the collar, and a rubber gripped loop for holding.

Yang shook her head. "We used to have those types of lead - because believe or not, she used to be even more energetic once - but she tends to stay pretty close nowadays, apart from when there's ducks." She grabbed another chocolate wafer stick, and replaced the lid. "So that length lead will do, she'll be comfortable - won't run off."

"Right." Jaune nodded and knelt down. In anticipation, Maiden tilted her head down, exposing the connecting point at the top of her collar which sat on the top of her neck. Jaune smiled at the act, hooking the metal connector into the collar, and then lifting it to let it click down and secure itself. He shook the lead to ensure it was fastened, and Maiden jumped up, trotting back and forth.

Yang bit down on one of her wafer sticks again. "You're a natural."

Jaune tugged the lead to motion Maiden into movement. "Very funny." He turned for the exit, following the eager hound.

Yang jogged after him, coming to walk next to him. "You got the key?"

Jaune fished the plastic-capped metal sculpt out of his pocket, dangling it infront of Yangs smugly. "Mhm."

To counter his overconfidence, she nudged him in celebration, and nearly knocked him completely off his feet. Maiden, infront and unaware, simply moved happily with the pull of the lead. Jaune, very much aware, just about caught himself on the wall, nearly planting a hand into one of Yang's childhood photos and smashing it to pieces. The napalm girl cackled, grabbing him by his arm to help him stabilise.

He shrugged her off, and took the key from his pocket again as they approached the door. She was an idiot, Raven would have murdered him if he had broken that picture. "You always have to have the last laugh..."

Yang shrugged, finishing her second wafer stick. "It's in my blood."

* * *

After a brisk walk along a surprisingly quiet residential road, the three had reached the vast local park through a series of turns and shortcuts. Jaune had eventually let Maiden loose in a small forest clearing they had found, by her darting demand, and she was now skipping over fallen trees and running through hollow logs. He looked to his companion, who was stood alongside him and watching Maiden's athletic stunts.

Making conversation, he gestured at her interesting choice of wear. "What's with the pilot's jacket?" He'd never seen Yang wear something like it, for she often braced the cold of winter regardless, and took to wearing typically standard clothing; tops, sweaters, raincoats, jeans, even shorts if she was daring. Not fur-lined, thick jackets. Obviously it was far from a big deal, she could wear what she wanted, but it made good conversation, and Yang always had interesting answers.

She made a noise of acknowledgement, and looked at her jacket. She looked forward with a smirk, and made a gesture of size. "Really shows off my bust."

Thank you, Yang, for the very convenient answer. Jaune shook his head, and looked back to Maiden to try to avoid the topic.

The girl scoffed. "What? I'm being serious."

Jaune looked back at Yang, and by the mirth of her eyes and the contained smile, he could tell she was in it for a laugh. He nodded. "Okay. Well it's good to know that's your bust jacket."

Yang raised an eyebrow and laughed. "It's my what? My 'bust jacket'?"

He put his arms out in emphasis. "Well, now everytime you wear it I'm gonna think of it as your bust jacket, aren't I?"

The blonde smirked. "Pervert."

"No..." He ground his teeth. Yang had flipped this on its head very quickly, but Jaune didn't stop to think. "You told me the bust thing, it's not _my_ fault."

She shrugged. "Then just forget about it. Easy."

Jaune looked away, thinning his lips. "Alright, fine."

The two stood in silence, and Jaune fidgeted with the tennis ball in his hand, wrapping a loose green thread around his finger. He could _hear _Yang's mind planning something.

And she was.

"Are you thinking about my tits?"

"No!" He grew red and grew sick of it, and went to walk away to tend to his true friend of the day. Maiden would treat him with dignity, and not try to humiliate him.

She laughed at his discomfort, raising her voice. "You sure?"

He turned around, walking backwards momentarily, frowning at her.

Maiden, taking notice of the disturbance, sprinted to her approaching companion, and played merry-go-round around the boy. Jaune muttered an instruction of stop, and she sat to attention. He had a ball after all, which was of utmost importance.

"You want the ball?"

Maiden stayed Maiden, so he took it as a yes, and with a firm release, quickly launched the ball into a dense array of bushes. Maiden, in her unwavering determination, pursued the ball and skipped through the vegetation. She'd be in there for a while.

Jaune stood with his hands in his hoodie pockets, playing with the top of the now open bag of treats that they had used to 'reward' Maiden for rolling down a slight incline. While Jaune had found it annoying at the time - which had to be understood considering she had still been attached to the lead, and he had been holding it - the sight was cute enough, and Yang's joy at the sight had titled him over to warrant giving Maiden a treat.

He thought back to Yang, and what an inscrutable irritation she could be. In retrospect, the past hour could have been a great deal easier if she weren't here. He'd still be at Raven's house lounging with Maiden.

Although, on the counter argument, without Yang he wouldn't have figured out how to open the door so soon. Or known where the doggy stuff was. Or remembered where the park was; the last time he went was as a kid.

Wait, no, he could just use signs to direct himself. Or maps on his phone.

But, above all that, Yang was apparently the only one who was willing to put up with him on a Saturday morning while he dogsat, so it was the thought that counted, really.

A firm smack on the back broke his thoughts, and nearly his spine, as his company came to await Maiden's return.

He coughed, wheezing his words. "Don't do that."

Yang said nothing. "How far did you throw it?"

He regained his composure and shrugged. "I dunno, even I lost track of it." He kicked a twig below him. "But I'm sure she'll find it."

Yang looked at him in uncertainty, then down at his wear too. "What's with the Pumpkin Petes hoodie?"

Jaune squinted at her in caution, then looked back at Maiden's lair. He mockingly emulated Yang's answer, hand gestures too. "It really accentuates my bust."

Yang sniggered with a grin. "Jauney, you are neither fat enough nor muscular enough to have anything on your chest."

He glanced at her in faux offense. "What?"

She planted a hand against his upper torso and groped. "There's nothing there."

Jaune, in reaction to Yang's newfound contact, blushed at her touch and stepped backwards slightly. "Alright... no need to rub it in." He pulled the front of his hoodie forward to return it to it's normally lax form, and give himself some breathing room.

Noticing his flusteredness, her eyes widened for a short moment in embarrassment, but it didn't show through. "What? Don't like that either?" She teased him again to save face.

"There's a difference between punching me and groping me." He listened for a rustle of bushes. "Yet, they both make me uncomfortable."

Yang crossed her arms, and a small ounce of sympathy came through. "Aight, no intimate touching." But it was tainted with mockery.

"Be quiet." Jaune's discomfort grew against his will, and he thrust his hands back into his pockets.

She only smiled in pure, liquid schadenfreude. "What're you gonna do when a girl actually flirts with you?"

"Hope that she isn't doing it with her hands." Jaune looked at her in firm suggestion.

The blonde thinned her lips, and the schadenfreude ran off. Maybe he had a point. "Sorry."

Jaune pushed again. "What? Would you like it if I grabbed _your_ chest?"

Yang deflected the interrogation, she wouldn't be beaten in a battle of discomforts, Arc. To the question, no, obviously she would not, she'd probably break his teeth if he did. But teasing him was funny. "That's an awfully suspicious thing to ask, Jaune."

He sighed, rolling his eyes. "Stop making me out to be some creepy perv." And his ogling of Raven came to the front of his mind at an inconvenient time. Okay, maybe that was a bad choice, but he hadn't meant to, it was a slip up.

She glanced at his solemn, and the desire for discomfort was replaced with one to comfort the boy. She'd had her fun. "Relax, Jauney, you're the last guy I know who'd do that." She nudged him gently. "You're a grounded guy." He was genuine, trustworthy. Which is why she liked him so much - _platonically_.

And he was pretty fun to joke about with.

The Arc's anger dissipated quickly at her kindness, and was replaced with the cool sensation of relief. The all too familiar thought of 'she didn't mean it' came back to him, and he breathed. "I'll put that on my CV. 'Grounded guy'."

Yang laughed, looking at him. "Hey, that's a good trait. Don't knock it, straight from Yang Xiao-Long."

He made a look of doubt. "Okay, well I'm not putting your name, that'd probably lose me points."

She jabbed him again, and he instinctively rubbed the area, looking at her in tempered irritation. Yang smirked warily. "Watch it."

* * *

17:56.

Raven had already checked into her hotel earlier, as provided by the company, and was now seated in the broad waiting lounge, fidgeting with an empty imperial mint wrapper and tonguing the mint itself about her mouth.

Regarding her business trip, she worked as a 'senior' (how flattering) financial advisor for a large-scale distribution and deliveries company. It tended to be very work-from-home heavy, for the last time she had been here - the main operations building, where her actual office was - was at the start of the year. She liked her job; pay was outstanding, insurance was provided, and she had the perfect position for the workaholic she was. She was just a number cruncher, really, and had plentifuls of wit to suit managing - within a team, which she couldn't stand - the financial forecast and operations of such a significant company. Her demanding position also meant, even if she was working from home, that she had little time for socialising with her colleagues, or attending the company get-togethers. That wasn't true, of course, but that was her excuse every time it was ever brought up.

So, why the frown, and why was she tearing the imperial mint wrapper into pitiful little pieces? Well, as mentioned earlier, the last time she had been here was at the start of this year, and from her absence, she had forgotten the six-digit code that was required to access her office, on the fourth floor. So her previous fifteen minutes had been registering at the desk, going up to the fourth floor per stairs, entering four different but wrong code combinations, being locked out, then agitatedly taking an elevator back down to the ground floor.

The receptionist didn't have any of the code combinations for any of the offices, for security reasons apparently, and so Raven would have to wait... for her secretary. The only other person who could know the entrance code, and the only one who would remember anyway.

"Raven!"

The displeased woman looked up, and saw, speak of the devil, her secretary striding towards her, waving.

She was embarrassing her.

Raven managed a meak wave back, and stood up from her seat. "Vernal."

Vernal, a short yet firm woman who sometimes scared even Raven by how sternly determined she was, fished her phone from her jacket pocket. "I got your text. I'm sorry, I was _just_ here earlier, I headed out to get something to eat, and what are the chances you turned up in that time?"

Raven pondered. "Very slim."

Vernal smiled in confirmation. "Exactly!" She opened a throwaway text document on her phone. "Uh, _that's _the code. Don't worry about forgetting, I forget about things all the time."

"No, you don't."

Vernal smiled again, clearing her throat and shaking her head. "No, I don't."

Raven raised an eyebrow at Vernal in amusement, then looked to the phone.

_'622851'_

Yes, of course, 622851, how could she forget?

She sighed. "Thank you, Vernal, you're a lifesaver."

Vernal nodded, and her eyes flashed with another streak of realisation. "Oh!" She reached into her bag that sat hanging from her shoulder. Raven glanced at her in uncertainty. "This..." Vernal searched for the unrevealed item. "...was in your pigeon hole, earlier. I think it's meant to be a gift?" She hoisted out what had to be a book. It was wrapped in crinkled sugar paper, with a poorly tied velvet bow decorating the top. Well, she knew who this shoddy effort was from.

Raven took the gift from her and looked at it unsurely, but didn't dare to open it yet. "Right." She placed it under her arm, and she checked the large digital clock above the stretching receptionist desk. '18:02', an hour until her obligatory financial meeting. "Horrible things await me, Vernal."

Vernal smirked at Raven's quip, and turned, gesturing towards the elevators. "It's a meeting, Raven. You never have any problems."

* * *

Within ten minutes of arriving in her office - three minutes of filing and seven minutes of sitting in the reclinable leather chair at her desk, she timed herself on the office clock - she had sorted and prepared all the necessary reports and folders required for the meeting. The rest was on a USB. Handy little thing.

In her wait, she took to attending to something else and looked to the gift that sat alongside her completed work on the glass desk. The lackluster wrapping made her uneasy, and the poorly set bow mocked her, so she reached for it in haste, and tore the wrapping from it, sighing in defeat.

To her dismay, it happened to be a book, and as she had guessed, not one she needed.

'A Mummy's Guide to the Midlife Crisis'

And not one she would read. She flicked open the first page, and a note fell out. She caught it, and took to reading the contents.

_'Your loving brother Qrow here,_

_I heard you hired one of my students to look after Maiden. Jaune's a kindred soul, so no scaring him, alright? I need him to get through his studies. And just incase, no seducing him either._

_Enjoy the book, thought you could do with it._

_Merry Christmas.'_

Raven digested the message and nearly tore the back from the book off in her frustration. She noticed a scrappy drawing at the bottom of the note, that looked like it was meant to be a wild cat, like a cheetah, or a lynx, or a cougar...

Oh, alright, very funny Qrow. She shut the book with the note and launched it into the far bin. The paperback crashed directly into the small metal cage, and lay there like a corpse. Bullseye. Raven still had it.

What she didn't have, was the patience to deal with Qrow's pathetic little teasings, which he always took too far from the smallest of things. No, she was not going through a mid-life crisis. She was in her late thirties, thank you very much. And no, she was not a _cougar _and would not be seducing a seventeen-year old boy. She wasn't a freak.

Irritatingly, she remembered that she had caught Jaune... looking at her. Brat. She'd given him the benefit of the doubt at the time though, because it didn't take long for her to recall what Tai was like at that age when any girl that walked past happened to be wearing something that wasn't a full-body hazmat suit.

Or, admittedly, what she was like at that age when Tai wasn't wearing anything for a top.

Okay, she was getting distracted. She needed to rehearse her presentation, taking into account what her team would be presenting alongside her.

Forty minutes to go, then an hour meeting, then her weekend would effectively be over.

And she could relax.

And then go home and see Maiden, as soon as possible.


	3. Victories

**/ - **RWBY Intervolume Hiatus greetings. Sorry for the wait.

Third chapter, a new record for me. A shorter one this time but it establishes some new faces.

Hope you enjoy.

* * *

"...the parent's evening is being moved to next month - well, _year _\- because we have state representatives coming in to speak to the students..."

'A Mummy's Guide to the Midlife Crisis'. Classic.

"...I'm sure that doesn't bother you, but I'm reminding you that it means you'll have to pull your reports back for editing for the extra month ahead..."

Raven was going to be furious, without a doubt. Kicking her legs in that sad little office of hers - he could see her now.

"...you can't be giving parents reports that are dated a month behind; this is an academy, not a pre-school..."

It was _the_ double-whammy - giving such a book to a divorced mother that spends more time inside her home than the stagnant air that fills it and speaks only to a dog. He wasn't going to let this go for the foreseeable future, because this was an undisputed victory over his mediocrely loathsome sister, and victories were far and few between as a literature teacher-

"Qrow!" The woman stood opposite the desk he slumps across beckons his name and it shatters his thoughts. Nearly knocking the illegal canister of whisky from next to him, he comes to with a sudden jolt. It's a saturday, but Qrow finds himself in his lecture-classroom having to organise folders, papers, files, and more folders. Glynda Goodwitch, deputy head teacher and head of the athletics department, is also here, thankfully.

"Yeah!" Words stop as he clears his throat. "Yeah-yeah-yeah." He leans back with an unfaulted expression of calm-and-cool, and he runs his hand through his surprisingly youthful black hair that sits unsurely on a childlishly rugged face. "I'm listening..."

She sighs in response to his affirmation and doesn't believe it. "The parents evening is-"

"Cancelled." Hands flop outwards with emphasis, and Qrow's second victory slowly comes to fruition with a grin.

"_W__hy_ is it cancelled, Qrow?" And then it wilts, and dies on the worn floor beneath them with a whimper.

A guttural noise of thought comes out charateristically coarse as ruby eyes pause in their motion. "Christmas... it's the Christmas holidays coming up."

The victory is impaled by the pointed heel of a boot. "We have _state representatives _coming in the same week as the parent's evening, and so it's been moved to after the holidays due to a lack of facilities."

"So it's not cancelled because of Christmas?"

"No. It has never been nor will be cancelled because of Christmas."

Qrow is disappointed, but he uses the moment to spur some of his own school policy forward. "Yeah... but it really should be, don't you think?"

"No." She crosses her arms. "Qrow, need I remind you this is an academy, not a-"

"Pre-school. I _know._"

The crossed link of limb across the woman's chest tightens, strangling a few strands of blonde hair in the grip, and the sharpened gaze she holds against Qrow comes to accompany the harbinger of an argument. "Why don't you _ever_ listen to _anything _I have to say?"

"Hey! I do... I _do_ listen, Glynda, just selectively. I take what I need and then the rest just kinda..." Hands are waved around in a motion that imitates a whirlpool.

"You've been drinking again, Qrow." Glynda had seen the whisky canister earlier. It was all too easy for the man, it seemed. "What you're trying to say is you can't help how much you listen because you're drunk."

While the accusatory tone backs him into a corner, he doesn't panic. "A little bit! Maybe I am slightly inebriated. But I ain't like this infront of the kids and that's what matters, right?" He snatches the closed canister instinctively and throws it into an open desk drawer next to him. "I drink a little when I mark papers, and I drink a little when I organise. But that's it."

Glynda reminds him that he's playing with a risky rhetoric. "The idea is that you shouldn't be drinking whilst on site."

Eyes narrow in doubt and he rebuts with a hundred-time-rehearsed concept. "I mark hundreds of written test-papers on tens of books and texts and _sometimes_ they're ten-thousand word essays. Drinking a little helps me relax and sometimes even makes me focus."

She comes to recognise a familiar argument that comes up time after time, and anticipates the same ending that ends it.

Qrow Branwen is loyal, he's experienced and he might just be one of their most committed. He was a student here, and Glynda wouldn't find herself petitioning for Qrow's removal even in her wildest dreams, because she's never known someone to consistently defilbrilate and manage such a grandiose subject as Literature Studies - at academy level - so well, and she worries Qrow will be the only one she'll ever know. She also knows that Ozpin wouldn't think of ridding of him either, so the prospect of firing the man is kind of dead in the water before it's even born.

So he's safe, no matter how much he infuriates her and no matter how much he drinks.

And no matter how many times he settles the same dispute.

She cedes with a sigh. "Drink a little less, please, and recite everything I've told you."

The old crow grins in his victory and goes to speak, but the thoughts are washed away again and all he can remember is that a state-represented pre-school was just cancelled. His memories have abandoned him for greener pastures, and a lump grows in his throat.

Qrow was going to need a drink.

* * *

The meeting room is a well-ventilated, oak and marbled modern catacomb of numbers and graphed predictions. It is a place that brings Raven despair, because while the water machine in there delivers crisply cold drink and the common assortment of sweet delicacies are irresistible, it's the people there that are uncomfortably warm and by no means 'irresistible' to the short-tempered woman.

The hour has passed; she has asserted her predictions and given her financial forecasts. She has walked back and forth in tight footwear and delivered enough numbers to crash a calculator. She is _done, _and she is _leaving_.

Except, not quite yet. Raven's dissipating stress from her meeting has left her with a crude lusting for sweet-treats, and she finds herself at the assortment table momentarily with her other colleagues, plastic cup of water in one hand and a pile of strawberry-chocolate in the other.

"How is your daughter, Raven?" The man stood next to her is polite and well-kept, with a sharp suit and combed hair, but he is too well-spoken to be genuinely friendly and Raven simply doesn't care for what he has to say. He's a higher-up, and he's clearly educated in the running of Vernal's mouth because Raven doesn't remember telling anyone but her that she had a daughter to speak of.

She speaks reservedly and shortly, not because she wants to be rude or harsh - this is her job and it is a prestigious one, and she doesn't wish to jeopardise it simply per her unfriendly tendencies - but because she doesn't want to lose the mouthful of chocolate she's chewing by spitting it out accidentally.

Raven covers her mouth with the back of a hand as she speaks. "She's fine, thank you." Her eyes dart to the clock at the back of the room, but the glance is too quick for her to read what it says. "She's at Beacon."

The man's eyes brighten in surprise. "Oh, that's wonderful, you must be so proud." He takes a sip of water. "What is she studying?"

Raven swallows the chewed chocolate, but doesn't eat another and too takes a sip of water to wash down her ingestion. "She's in her second year, so they do a range of compulsory subjects, and then narrow it down after the third year." She tries to steal a glance at the clock again. "But she wants to do something with athletics; she does a lot of martial arts extracurricurally."

The man smiles with genuine impress. "The fighting spirit is hereditary, I can see."

"Yes..." Raven smiles in a slight of amusement, though she really does want to snarl at the man, and she nods. Her eyes dart to the clock again and linger a while longer. '19:47' - she really needed to go. "I really must go."

Playing the polite is easy, and the man nods and steps back in reassurance. "Of course, I'm sorry to keep you waiting."

Raven forces a laugh in her victory. "Oh, it's fine. It's just a train that I need to catch." She grabs an extra handful of chocolates and stuffs them into her blazer pocket for later.

"Have a nice Christmas, Raven."

She turns and heads for the door, but keeps eye contact for a moment. "Oh, you too." She's forgotten his name, but once again it doesn't matter.

She's free, and she jogs reservedly and as least painfully as possible through the open door. Replacing her luxurious boots for high-heels had been a mistake, but formal dress-code and all had begged to differ.

She takes a quick right down the equally intricate and well-ventilated corridor, and strides towards the very end where her office sits, pulling deformities and pressing creases out from her short skirt as an excuse to pull it as far down her legs as possible. Wearing heels had also been a clothing mistake, because without her _knee-length _boots Raven was essentially half-naked, and without tights she was now showing enough leg to feed a pack of hyenas.

The door of her office is breached open quickly once she reaches it, and she's greeted with a surprised assistant.

"Oh!" She jumps with a laugh. "How did it go?" Vernal can see that small-talk and pleasantries have been left behind in the meeting room as Raven nearly rips the door from its hinges. She traverses as fast as her heels permit her to the collection of items in her chair, and a black hand-bag that is reached for in haste strains against shoulder as its thrown on roughly, and the items inside rustle about in reaction.

Raven responds, herding her chocolates into her bag. "Pick a synonym for 'fine' - any synonym."

Vernal fiddles with a button on her blazer. "Well, fine as in 'all right'? Or fine as in 'excellent' or 'well-made'?"

Raven turns her phone on quickly and reads the time at a glance. "Yes, Vernal, I had a well-made meeting." '19:49' - she could catch the train for eight and be back at her hotel earlier than if she got a taxi.

Her assistant deflects the sarcasm with a genuine smile. "Well, I'm happy it went well - as always." She remains leant against the wall, papers in hand, as Raven darts for the door. "See you next year, then?"

Raven turns as her hand grabs the metal doorknob. "See you next year, Vernal. Have a nice Christmas." She smiles with a scarce drop of sincerity, and leaves her secretary-for-the-day to her normal job of finanical consultancy.

And heads for a silk duvet, and maybe a bath-bomb or two.

* * *

"It is currently... eight-thirty-five, in the evening."

Time flies, and Jaune, for those who missed it, had been around the world and back alongside Yang and Maiden; the park, varying lengths of streets and cul-de-sacs, a smaller park with less ducks about, a quaint shopping street, back here for food and a different ball, then _back out _again because Maiden had failed to get enough fresh air and exercise from the prior adventure.

Though he really wishes she had, because on the second outing Maiden had found a greatly smaller yet snappy dog to pick a fight with. Which wasn't humiliating or unnecessary at all.

Not one of his _finest_ moments.

Unlike his relaxed partner, Jaune remains sat staunchly upright on the sofa that would otherwise promote the opposite. "Yeah..." The curled up dog that breathes calmly next to the not-so-calm boy does do a lot to settle his nerves, but he also doesn't want to play with the prospect of cheaping out on his job, so Jaune is somewhat stuck in a moral battleground of 'should I stay or should I go?'.

Yang, bomber-jacketless and hair splayed out unkemptly, lies laxly stretched across the other sofa in Raven's living room, a dry bowl of cinnamon cereal balances on her midriff, and she fishes a few out every now and then. "The trains stop at ten if I remember correctly, Jaune. You should probably go home."

"Well, then so should you."

"No..." She switches the channel on the TV with remote in-hand. "...this is my mom's house, meaning I can stay here as long as I want..." Cinnamon shards move about against ceramic as Yang stretches out again. "...you can't."

Jaune tongues the inside of his mouth in thought and looks to the sleeping dog. Maiden has been walked, fed, played with, she's had water, and now she's even sleeping. Every box is checked, and Yang says she'll stay over night just incase, so there isn't really much of a case for Jaune to stick around any longer. "Yeah..." But what if Raven doesn't pay him because he left early?

But his parents also wouldn't be impressed if he didn't come home, and nor would his homework.

Yang chuckles at his strained expression, and Jaune can feel the pressure of her glare. "So..."

And as the word tails off, he cracks, darting up from his seat and nearly waking Maiden. "Right. I'm going." He rubs any remaining traces of dog hair from his jeans and heads for the archway-door quickly before he changes his mind, making sure not to trip on the bone toy that sits on the floor. "Thanks."

Yang raises an eyebrow at him. "What for?"

"For helping me... with Maiden, and all."

She smiles and breaks the eye contact, looking back to the television that plays quietly in the background. "No problem, you did pretty all right - for your first time with her."

He jumps the gun slightly on his good workmanship. "You are gonna match what Raven pays me, right?"

Yang flops her head backwards with a laugh, and her golden locks scatter over and across the end of the sofa. She looks up at him with a sparkle in her lilac beauties and a grin. "Of _course _I will; I'm impressed."

"Good. Great!" He moves halfway through the archway exit, and bids his companions farewell for the day. "Bye."

She turns to face the television once more, and her response is short. "See-ya."

* * *

When Jaune finally winds back up in familiar territory, it's past nine and far into the dark of night, but he returns unkidnapped and unmurdered, so he considers it a success. He has bounded between bus and train and foot, and he is borderline exhausted, but his dad shows himself to be somewhat unimpressed with his timing and isn't really so bothered about his state.

When it comes to Saphron, one of his older sisters that conveniently happened to be back _today_ from her apprenticeship-job thing in Argus because of the upcoming Christmas break, it was more of a shooting range for her.

Which was great; having to deal with his second most insufferable sister at nine o'clock, whilst trying to do biology homework, at an uncomfortable and cold dining table, after a full day of dogsitting, was just what Jaune needed. So thank you, universe, your gift will be in the mail.

"How much are you getting paid?" Saphron is a short yet snappy figure, with a mind too witty for her own good and a desire for worming out information from those she holds dear. But she's the one sister of his eight that's taken the closest liking to him, and the one who genuinely cares for him the most, so he can't complain.

"Fifty a day."

"And you're going back tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

"So that's a hundred?"

"Yeah."

She takes a mouthful of yoghurt. "That's it?"

"Well, Yang said she'll match it. So it's two-hundred."

Her eyes narrow as she thinks only momentarily. "Yang? That goldilocks looking one?"

"Yeah?"

A metal spoon scrapes across the inside of a nearly empty pot of strawberry yoghurt, and she lets the pool of pink goodness settle on her spoon for a moment as she nods. "The one you used to fancy?"

He makes a mocking fake laugh. "I never fancied her, Saph, we were friends. You made that up because she was a girl."

"So you're not friends anymore?" She takes a mouthful from the spoon.

The pen presses harder into paper. "No... no, we're still friends..."

The yoghurt is swallowed quickly in order to maintain her barrage. "Oh, good. So there's still hope for you two."

Jaune throws the page of his biology textbook overleaf harshly. "I've got homework to do, can you come back later?"

Saphron doesn't respond, instead lifting herself up against the table with her arms and sitting on the edge. "Yang..." She nods and hums a noise of recognition. "I do kinda remember her, didn't she come speak to us at the acceptance awards for Beacon?"

"Yeah..."

The spoon is pointed in question. "She's the one with the rack, isn't she?"

The conversation leads to the undesirable, and he looks up from his work and narrows his eyes at his sister. "What is it with-?"

Saphron cackles. "Right, sorry, you're a _gentleman_ aren't you Jaune? A knight in shining armour." She spoons the remaining yoghurt from the pot. "A man like you couldn't care for boobs."

"I didn't say that."

"So you like them? I bet you stare at them."

"Saph..."

"You can tell me! I won't tell anyone, trust." She struggles to hold her laugh back, and it tremors through her words.

Jaune doesn't respond, Yang had already joked with him about the exact same thing earlier today, and he wasn't prepared to repeat the process with his sister. It was immature and annoying, because everyone seemed to have this image that Jaune was an awkward, bumbling idiot that got tangled up and flustered when talking about adult subjects.

Well, he was sick of it! If he could get Saphron off his back, it would be a victory.

But she hooks onto her brother's discomfort and continues. "Is there actually something going on between you two?..."

Jaune shakes his head.

"...'cause if there is, and it's _seri__ou__s..._" She looks into the slowly withering reserve of yoghurt. "...then I'll stop teasing you about it."

That's not Saph speaking, a bacterial colony in the yoghurt must have taken over. "Why can't you stop teasing me anyway?"

"Because hypotheticals are funny."

"And realities aren't?"

She shrugs. "Well, yeah, but then I might make you cry."

"I'm seventeen?"

"Men can still cry, Jauney. I don't care if you're seventeen years old or seventy years old! I'm _not _going to make my only brother cry." She jabs the messed spoon at him in earnest.

"What if I was just another sister?"

"Do you have a death-wish, Jaune? Do you_ want _me to make you cry?"

"Not really..."

"Then stop asking questions, dummy!" She hops from the dinner table with a smile and throws her empty pot of yoghurt into a plastic bin that doesn't sit too far away. "You may continue your homework, I'm gonna go chat with someone who actually entertains my genius." Before she leaves, she walks past Jaune and leans down, pecking him on the cheek in jest. "If Yang _ever _has the cheek to ask - a girl has never kissed you, 'cause family don't count, alright?"

He doesn't turn to face her, and brushes the mark from his cheek. "Yes, Saph, I know. I am a functioning human being." He recollects his pen. "Can you leave me alone, now?"

Saphron whistles in surprise and giggles. "Alright, Jauney, chill a little."

The irritated and flustered boy only growls something under his breath, and he returns to the burden of late-night biology homework.

* * *

_"You binned it?"_

"Yes."

_"Why?"_

"Because it isn't funny, Qrow, and I don't need it. So I binned it."

_"I thought it was hilarious." _The line on the other end shakes a little and crackles, but to Raven's dismay, her brother's voice returns soon after. _"Are you sure you don't need it?__"_

"Qrow, you are a sad, lonely little man who has never been in a committed relationship. You are throwing stones from a glass h-"

_"Yeah, but you're a divorced anti-social and have daughter trauma. Your life is a lot more dodgy than mine."_

Raven snarls, and throws another chocolate wrapper into the bin from her luxurious position on her double-bed. "This isn't a competition on who's got the worse life, you immature little..." She stops herself and thinks how funny Qrow is probably finding this. "Why are you calling me?"

_"Because I love my sister and wanna talk to her. Is that too much to ask?"_

Raven laughs bitterly. "Oh, you love me do you?"

_"Hey!" _The line on the other side grows clearer and louder. _"I might hate you Raven, but I also love you. We're _siblings."

Raven shifts in her place, and Qrow's sudden response burns a small swirl of shame in her chest. She sighs. "Why _are _you calling me, Qrow?"

_"Well... I thought we could meet when you get back; Christmas is coming up and I thought we could organise something for the twenty-fifth."_

A party, a Christmas party. Marvellous. "Can we talk about this tomorrow?" The shifting pitch of the falling water from the bathroom reminded her of her actual plans. "I'm running a bath."

_"You using a bath-bomb?"_

Raven grows cautious. She was, but what was he asking? "Yes."

_"Oh, that's good, you're making good progress." _A chuckle emanates through the phone._ "They help with skin and sensory stress, according to the book."_

Raven clutches another chocolate and tears the wrapper away. "Qrow, it's been a pleasure talking, but I've just remembered what I think about you-"

_"I'm gonna buy you a second copy, and you're gonna read it-!"_

"See you soon." And with the tap of a touchscreen button, he was gone.

She rests her phone on the nearest bedside table and sighs a breath of relief, chewing one of her last strawberry chocolates. She had intended upon saving them for her bath and luxuriating like a Roman goddess... but Qrow had called, which lead to stress, which lead to sugar, which lead to no bath chocolates.

She fiddles with the end of the bath robe's belt. Despite her bed, lack of high-heels, lack of work clothes, and approaching bath, her mind rests uneasy as the absence of Maiden continues to broil uncertainty. She had already texted Yang earlier, who said Maiden was fine and Jam- _Jaune_ had done great, and that she'd be staying at hers for the night to keep an eye on her beloved pup. It _was_ all very reassuring news...

"Grief..." She sighs a word of disappointment to herself over her stressing and swings her legs over the edge of her bed, standing up and striding towards the running bath. Taking the emotional initiative, she opts to abandon her thoughts for the following hour or so, and make room for an ounce of relaxation.

Then, if it really is of so much concern, she can worry about Maiden after.

And Qrow's Christmas plans.

And Yang.

And paying Jaune.

And, last but not least, maybe herself.


	4. First Sunday

**/ - **New chapter, finally.

Sorry if the initial dog-sitting fiasco seems short-lived, but I've got more planned far beyond just a weekend job for the story, and I got a bit tangled up in this chapter trying to lay things out. Not my strongest.

Hope you enjoy nonetheless.

* * *

Yang wakes late. She finds herself wrapped in a tangle of blanket and yesterday's worn clothes, gripped still with the aim of not butchering the perfect orientation she lies in that cups her back and stretches her legs. The room around her is peaceful, filled only with the slow hum of a waking central heatling system, and the absence of any noticeable commotion tells her that Maiden remains asleep.

As she stretches out in her waking moments, a slow warmth rises in her chest and her locks of gold tumble and loosen from the cushion behind her. The arched position she holds herself in for a moment soon gives way with a sigh, and she glances to the room's steel clock.

'9:34'

Eyelids droop, and Yang manages a word under her sleepy breath. "Grief..."

Maiden was sure to awake soon, and Jaune would inevitably be back by midday, so Yang decides to take opportunity in the little time she has left by herself to have a shower and try at breakfast.

She peels the blanket from her frame and swings her legs onto the floor. With the tensing of calves and another upwards stretch of linked arms, Yang stands up, tip toeing to the bathroom in a search for warm water and scented shampoos.

* * *

"Are you done in there?"

The voice that emanates from the other side of the bathroom door is impatient but sleepy, and it's close proximity to the door tells that it can only be one, certain individual.

Jaune, who stands inside the bathroom, sighs a hot breath that matches the sauna-state of the room. He's dressed in fresh joggers and a creased t-shirt that has missed the ironing order, both hands are occupied by an already damp towel that rustles the wet mess of blonde hair on his head, and he gives the heckler a meagre response. "Almost."

A groan vibrates against the door. "Jaune, it is..." Silence for a second. "...five-to-ten, you've been in there for like half-an-hour."

A gesture of surprise at the exaggeration causes Jaune to drop the towel to his feet. "_What?_" He leans down and snatches the towel up, launching it into the wet-basket. "I was in the shower for about ten - I'm getting dry."

The girl's impatience grows, and she pounds her palm against the door. "You can get dry out here. I cannot shower out here." The pounding stops. "Open sesame!"

Just at the call of her incantations, the aluminium lock that holds her back clicks sharply, and the handle that accompanies it turns as the door swings open with a gust of warm, watered air.

Saphron, impressed with her own success, wearing a loose sweater and shorts, makes a look of surprise at her towering, less impressed brother. "Huh..." She smiles, patting him on the shoulder and gliding past the irritated boy. "Thanks, Jauney."

He frowns laxly, vacating the doorway as the door is shut and locked behind him. Taking in his cooler, less steamy surroundings, he swipes up his phone from the small corridor cupboard adjacent to him and, clicking the small power button, glances at the screen.

'9:56'

His legs ache from yesterday's escapade across Vale, and despite Maiden's best efforts to be somewhat timid, he now had a pink, tender burn across the inside of his right palm from gripping the leash.

Nevertheless, Jaune was determined to do it all over again, and he wanted to be back at Raven's by eleven at the latest, given Maiden's insatiable lust for exercise and his own lust for performing an exemplary job. He was going to earn this one-hundred (two-hundred) lien, even if it was going to turn his legs to exercised jelly and tear his hands to shreds.

His thoughts of riches are broken by the creaking of floorboards and a tapping of footsteps. "Jaune, my beloved brother." A voice smoother yet less reassuring than that of Saphron's echos from down the hallway.

Violet, his second oldest sister and local torment-incarnate, walks briskly towards him, holding a small, rectangular parcel in her left hand and a slice of toast in the other.

"Hm?"

She takes a bite of the toast and holds out the delicately sealed box. "You think you could take this to the post office for me?" Words are spluttered carefully through a mix of marmalade. "Saph told me you've got some weekend job."

Violet and Jaune have been at war since they were toddlers, and the rivalry has only grown since. Now, at respective ages nineteen and seventeen, she almost equals him in height, has a nasty, lifelong-honed knack for making things difficult, a brain to fuel it, and annoys-worries him enough to make him think twice regarding anything that's related to her.

With that simple description, one might think she's simply Yang as a sister, but one would be very wrong, because whereas Yang is a human, with plenty of other human qualities, who sometimes likes to laugh at people, Violet _only_ likes to laugh at people, and will sometimes pretend to be human. As far as Jaune is concerned, she has no other qualities.

She's the reason Yang has never majorly bothered Jaune with her own jokes, because she's nothing like Violet; while Yang gets a laugh out of it, Violet enjoys watching people squirm.

Their relationship is a war of one-ups and last-laughs, and while Jaune still loves her as a sister, he seems to lose too many and hates her for it.

That's not to say he still doesn't try his luck, though.

He looks at her incredulously, pocketing his phone. "Pay me."

She frowns back just as equally, bringing the parcel back towards her body. "Screw you." Another bite of toast. "I'm not paying you for that."

Jaune continues to push. "The post office isn't on the way to my 'job'. I'll take it if you pay me." It absolutely was on the way, it was right next to the bus-stop he used. But Violet didn't know that.

She tongues the inside of her mouth in thought for a moment. She really couldn't be bothered to take the thing all the way to the post office today, given that it's Sunday and closes early, and Jaune was the best balance of trustworthy and responsible she could gamble for amongst her siblings, as much of a blunder-ridden klutz as he was. "Fine." She holds the parcel back out. "I'll pay you five, then you can buy yourself a breakfast snack, or somethin'."

Jaune smiles, holding out his hand. "Deal."

Violet looks to the gesture and immediately grins, handing the box over and taking a final bite of her toast. There's silence for a moment between the two, but as Jaune inspects the box and thinks of what type of delicacy to buy with his newly owned five lien, he doesn't notice it. "You been busy in the shower?"

He narrows his eyes in thought and looks up. "What?"

She waves her own right hand, now free of toast, and thins her lips in amusement.

Jaune's thoughts are swimmingly cool for a moment and thinks Violet has pulled some lame joke, but once he thinks back to his hand and the mark that adorns it, an inferno roars down his neck and into his chest. "That's a leash burn!" Violet only cackles and nods as Jaune grows red in embarrassment. "It is! I'm dog-sitting this dog-"

"Thinking of your girlfriend?" Violet's signature cerulean eyes grow mocking. "What's her name? Yawn? Ying?" Her eyes flash and she clicks at him. "Yang!"

"Wha-?" He swallows the lump in his throat and groans. "Shut up, Violet."

Violet only shrugs. "Saph told me about her." Saphron... "What's she like? Is she _pretty_?"

Jaune nearly snaps and jabs the box at her. Things like this happen alot.

Not... not this _specific _thing... just...

"Do you want me to take this thing or not?"

She only scoffs. "Hey! I paid you for it - it's a legal obligation that you do so." Jaune tries to zone her out. "You're bound by contract... I think." Oh, did he mention Violet also majors in law? She found a university subject that specialises in pulling people apart with words. What a joke.

Jaune rolls his eyes. "Give me the five."

"It's in my room, I'll go get it for you when you leave." She smiles, lowering her voice into a more delicate and drawn-out tone. "Tell me about Yang."

Jaune scoffs back. "No. I don't ask about your friends."

Violet only laughs. "Because I don't think about my friends in the shower, dummy." The faster-than-light drive in her brain jolts to-and-fro momentarily as she thinks. "You must have gone pretty hard at it over her to burn your hand."

He shuts his eyes and shudders, walking past her. "It's the fu-... It's the dog leash." He forces himself to think of something else. Breakfast sandwiches. Money.

Needing to be at the post office before ten-thirty.

...

Needing to be at the post office before ten-thirty!

* * *

It's just gone eleven when a careful knock at the door breaks Yang's stupor of morning television and strawberry-bran-flake cereal. The reverberating of steel wakens the already fed Maiden once more, but she stays uncharacteristically seated for the moment.

Yang heaves herself from her blanketed paradise, walking with a brisk pace out of the room and down the corridor to greet her new visitor. Past the series of locks and latches, opening the door gifts her with a blast of winter sun and a pink-faced, rustled Jaune. His hair is notably unkempt for the morning, and has clearly had the wind run through it. His signature hoodie is creased at the edges.

Yang smirks at the state of the new arrival. "Have you been on a jog or something?"

Jaune only shrugs it off nonchalantly, elaborating upon his last half-an-hour. "I almost missed the post office, is all."

Yang narrows her eyes. "Post office?"

He nods, seemingly not acknowledging Yang's point. "My sister gave me a parcel to deliver."

She raised her brow. "On a Sunday?" Yang hints further. "She couldn't have done it yesterday?"

Jaune eventually catches on, but it's something he's already realised and he makes a worn face of defeat in response. "Yeah, I see in hindsight that it was probably just to ruin my morning." Violet...

Yang nods her head slowly and holds back a laugh, examining his unkempt form. "Yeah... 'think she got you there..."

The conversation between the two is broken by an excited bark and a scurrying of paws as Maiden comes hurtling towards the two, having recognised Jaune's voice.

Jaune glances past Yang. "Looks like she's raring to go again."

"Mhm... she was doing circles in the kitchen earlier." Yang shakes her head. "Almost killed me."

Maiden rears herself up on Jaune, bounding around him at a rate that matches her panting.

Yang sniggers and admires Maiden's joy. "Alright, well time to go I guess." She looks back to Jaune. "My Mom text, says she'll be back by five. That alright with you?"

Jaune nods reassuringly. "Yeah, of course it is."

Yang only smiles, turning to return inside. "Alright, I'll go get everything we need. Wait there - and _don't_ let her run off."

* * *

As a literature teacher, Qrow likes to think he sees the poetry in life; the exposition that comes from in between the lines.

It is in that sense then that, to Qrow, marking a student's paper is similar to watching a plant grow through its early stages of hardship and persistence, and blossom with the fruits of its determination.

Both are really boring.

Qrow will admit he struggles with his position as a literature teacher at one of Vale's most prestigious academies. Not a struggle in the capacity of ability, it's more a struggle in the capacity of patience; people seemingly aren't so bothered about literature studies, and Qrow isn't eccentric enough like Oobleck or lost-in-his-own-stories enough like Port to keep his students invested.

"Winchester..." His coarse voice mutters to himself in train of thought. "Seventeen..." That was out of forty, but it was still, somehow, a C.

Qrow flips the front page over and flattens the paper, moving it into the marked pile. He takes a quick swig of _hot cocoa_, something Ozpin had recommended to him under the prospect that a severe sugar addiction would overpower his alleged alcoholism, and reached for the next paper to mark.

"Nikos..." In his darkest hour, Qrow is rewarded with a reliable name that would restore his faith in the integrity of literature studies. Pyrrha was a star student, seemingly across all boards, and wasn't a pain to decrypt in her writing like Little-Miss-Schnee was and didn't have a bad habit of writing far too much like Belladonna did.

And as good as Belladonna _was_ at writing, Qrow wasn't immortal, so he typically just gave her full marks after the two page mark and called it a day.

His red pen glides down the paper with his reading, occasionally stopping at points that deserve a mark. Pyrrha hits the right points consistently; circular narrative, biblical imagery, character juxtaposition, connotations, et cetera, et cetera.

She only misses out on 'pathetic fallacy', whatever that is. Qrow forgets.

"Nikos..." He scribbles down the mark and circles it. "Thirty-eight." Not full marks, but still an A. Hey, no one's perfect.

As the time that's passed accumulates into a tangible weight on his mind, his thoughts drift to his sister, who should currently be stranded in her economic career hellscape. She deserves it. If Qrow has to come in at the weekends to mark papers (which _may _be his fault in the first place for being too lazy to take the papers home), then she should have to work at least one weekend in the many months she has of sitting at home on a laptop punching in numbers.

Or whatever she does. Raven doesn't tell much.

He glances to the clock above his door. He only has twenty minutes to grind out, then he can get out. Next paper.

"Arc..." The one who seemingly works for his earns, and the only one whose final mark isn't always a given. Perhaps he'll crash and burn, or maybe his work will pay off and he'll land himself full marks.

Qrow is certain someone's recently started tutoring him to some capacity though, because he's started constructing his paragraphs in the same compulsive way, and he's started to acknowledge things like _intertextuality_ in texts, something that was completely foreign to the boy for the past couple years. Qrow has his suspicions.

The disgruntled man assesses the stretch of text, and the pen scratches a series of ticks throughout the first page. The page turns hopefully, but the second array of text doesn't fare so well, and so Jaune falls short, not quite making the A. "Twenty-nine." Qrow flips the paper back to the front page and scribbles down the mark. Arc lands himself a strong B. Not bad.

Just as Qrow places the paper in the marked pile and reaches for the next, his lecture room door rattles with two gentle knocks and creaks open slightly.

Qrow clears his throat of muttered words and calls out with a softer tone. "Come in."

A familiar face peers around the side. "Hello, sir." It's Pyrrha, speak of the aforementioned devil. She's dressed in track gear and has her hair in a hurried ponytail, a heavy-looking bag hangs from her left shoulder, and she greets Qrow with a polite smile.

He smiles back. "Can I help you Miss Nikos?"

She gestures behind her. "Um, well I've just been at track and... I was wondering if you had my mark?" She shrugs quickly after. "It's okay if you don't, I was just around..."

Qrow chuckles to himself, cutting her waffling off. "Thirty-eight, Miss Nikos."

Pyrrha hoists her bag up with a slight bounce, and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear with another smile. "Oh, thank you, sir." The girl pauses for a moment, and Qrow raises an eyebrow. "What did I miss?"

"Uh..." Qrow racks his memory and eyes her paper. Come-on, brain. "Pathetic fallacy. I think." He looks back at her as confidently as he can, but she seems to see through it.

With a giggle, she steps back and closes the door with a farewell. "Thank you, sir. See you tomorrow."

Qrow looks back to the next paper to be marked, returning the gesture. "See you tomorrow."

Just as tempered silence returns to the room, and before Qrow can look to the new paper, the phone beside him buzzes with notification.

He swipes it up loosely and turns it on.

'Raven (2)'

Qrow ponders in thought, it's late in the afternoon so perhaps she was already back in Vale, but that still wouldn't necessitate a message from her.

He swipes the message aside and taps in a four digit code.

_'I've been thinking about it. I'll do your Christmas get-together, whatever it is.'_

'_Don't plan anything horrible.'_

* * *

When Jaune gets home this time, it's only the start of the evening, he returns one-hundred lien richer, and he feels a slight more confident following Raven's, while reluctant, genuine thanks for his work.

He's flopped on the couch, shared with Saphron who sits at the other end, indulging in a bag of chilli rice crackers.

"So the whole thing was just a dare?"

Jaune only shrugs. "Kinda, Yang thought I wouldn't take the offer."

"And she's definitely giving you a hundred as well for it?"

Jaune grins, flipping a rice cracker in between his fingers. "Mhm."

Saphron scoffs, stretching her legs outwards. "What a rip-off. I didn't really believe you when you told me yesterday."

"Hey, I performed an exemplary job." Jaune throws a few crackers into his mouth, chewing them gleefully. "I kinda deserve it."

Saph eyes him for a moment, and Jaune tilts his head in question. She shrugs with a grin.

Jaune swallows the mouthful of spice. "What?"

Saphron runs a hand through her hair. "She likes you."

He only shakes his head, taking another rice cracker from the bag.

"Who likes Jaune?" At the same time, the door, which was already partially open, swings outward and gifts them Violet. In her seemingly limitless buoyant energy, she strides in and bounds herself over the side of the other vacant couch in the room and splays across it, her mess of medium length hair flying over with her.

He only scowls at her arrival. "No-one."

"Saph." Violet darts upwards on the couch and sinks into a corner cushion. Widening her eyes at the girl, she begs for more information. "Saph..."

Jaune makes a pleading look at his eldest sister, but to the spite of his own inegrity she chooses to ignore it. "Yang."

The boy of the hour crunches the bag in his left hand. "No-"

A cackle sounds from Violet. "Man, I knew it from the start. What happened? Have you got her bra or something?"

Jaune faux laughs at her and narrows his eyes. "Good one." She only shrugs, and Jaune's toxic response fuels the grin on her face.

Saphron points at him and laughs, sitting up in her corner of the couch. "She gave him a hundred lien for dog-sitting."

Violet makes a choking noise of shock. "A hundred?!"

He tries to make sense of the circumstance. "It was for a dare. She hasn't even given it to me yet."

"That doesn't matter." Violet begins her barrage. "I don't give someone a _hundred _of my own money for some dare." She shakes her head. "She's prostituting you off."

He narrows his eyes at her in aggression. "Shut up."

Noticing her brother's tone turn fowl, and in an attempt to settle the room, Saphron intervenes and kicks the boy lightly in jest. "Relax, Jaune... we're pulling your leg."

Jaune only snaps back at her. "You're always pulling my leg." But it does nothing to resolve the situation and makes Saphron recoil slightly, and even more shame boils in Jaune's chest.

Violet whistles. "Calm it, bro, Saph's on your side of the family." She keeps applying pressure. "I knew something was up this morning."

Saphron perks up and looks at Jaune with a gentle gaze. "What happened this morning?"

Jaune only silences himself and stares at the television with a frown. This is Violet's forte, finding a way to connect the dots to form a spider's web of misery and humiliation. It didn't matter how much of it was actually true anyway, gossip convinces absolutely.

"Jauney..." Violet thins her lips.

Before Violet can go any further, Saphron finally concludes upon her brother's discomfort and takes to protecting him. She's always known Violet and Jaune to have a bitter bond, and as much as she should love them equally as the eldest sister, Jaune is her only little brother and that means he's precious to her. "That's enough, Violet."

She throws her hands up in both question and surprise. "What? I'm pulling his leg, like you said."

"And now I'm saying that's enough." She widens her eyes back. "You can't exactly talk..."

She scoffs and turns onto the defensive. "I could easily get a boyfriend, what of it?"

Jaune tries to stifle a laugh, but it comes through as a snort. Violet isn't the most loveable of people.

Violet loses it slightly and jabs a finger at Jaune. "Why are you laughing?"

Saphron smiles at her brother's restored happiness and continues, thinning her lips to hold a laugh back. "Didn't you ask a gay guy out once?"

"I-!" She's cut off by Jaune's growing laughter, and she bites the inside of her mouth in anger. "I didn't know he was gay!" She looks to her brother, who's now falling into laughter alongside Saphron. "You two don't know shit, at least I'm brave enough to ask someone out!"

Jaune, now seeing the colour in life once again and catching his breath, simply shrugs off Violet's jab. "Relax, Violet."

His sister snarls, looking back to the television and scrambling to change the subject. "Whatever."

Saphron taps Jaune with a foot and winks at him in reassurance. He smiles back, reopening his bag of chilli rice crackers.

Violet breaks the momentary silence and asks Jaune something less offensive. "Do you know Pyrrhus by the way?"

He turns to his left to look at her. "You mean Pyrrha?"

"Yeah, whatever."

"Yeah, I do." Jaune raises an eyebrow. "How do you know her?"

She shrugs dismissively. "I don't. I know her brother though."

Her words trip Jaune for a moment. "She's got a brother?"

Violet nods her head, clearly relishing in knowing something Jaune doesn't. "Mhm." She takes the remote from her side and searches for another channel. "He's a transfer student from Mistral, started this year, does athletics."

Saphron looks at Violet in question. "Why are you telling us this?"

Violet shrugs, but there's a hint of something suspicious about it. "No reason." She's lying.

Saphron doesn't acknowledge it. "Do you like him?"

Violet scoffs. "No." She stops clicking the remote and settles on a history channel. "He's an ass."

Jaune smirks. "You should ask him out." His quip is rewarded with a laugh from Saphron.

Violet nearly throws the remote at him. "Be quiet, Jaune. No one asked for your opinion."

Saphron pipes up again and sniggers. "Just make sure he isn't gay."

Violet nearly turns red with frustration as the two laugh at her expense again. "Shut up! Both of you!"


	5. Plans

**/ - **New chapter.

Hopefully things should start moving along now, storywise.

Hope you enjoy.

* * *

On the final Monday from Christmas break, Yang is awoken by a less than merry cocktail of events. It starts audibly with a loud snap of a handle and an opening of a window, then a cool yet unsettling gust of winter air, and once Yang has pulled herself from the darkness of shut-eye, a pair of silver eyes.

The eyes, wide and freshly awake, brighten with a whisper when they meet violet. "Wake up."

Yang frowns from the slumped position she lies in on her stomach, though half of her visible displeasure is cloaked by a dense pillow and a splayed arm. Ruby shouldn't really be in here, and the window definitely shouldn't be open.

And Yang should still be asleep.

"Hnn?" She tries to make out something discernible, but her face is so mushed up against her pillow and her brain is so muddled from her rude awakening that she doesn't quite have it down.

Ruby flops backwards to sit on her rear from her previous knelt position. "It's the last Monday until Christmas break! Wake up..." She shrugs, taking in the many adornments about her sister's room. "It's also school and all, that's pretty important."

Yang turns her head further to the right, clearing a stagnant throat and breathing a yawn as violet eyes water. "Are you going to do this every day of the week?"

The girl smiles in response, fiddling with the neck of her pajama top. "If you want."

Yang blinks in quick succession, clearing her eyes of sleep and blur. "I don't..." She pushes herself up and turns over, stretching her arms above her head for a moment. "Why did you open my window?" Her arms come to lay back at her side, and she breathes another deep sigh.R

Ruby clambers from her seated position and walks parallel to the single bed. "Mom told me to open it, she said you can't breathe in here." She widens her eyes in suggestion. "It is kind of warm in here."

As a bedroom should be. "It's the middle of winter - it's freezing out." Yang frowns at the girl with an insistent look. "Close it."

Ruby, now fifteen years old and a great deal more confident, doesn't fall to the 'older sister' hierarchy anymore. "No, close it yourself if you don't like it." Just before she vacates Yang's humbly sized yet thoroughly decorated room, she points with a finger. "Also, the 'middle of winter' is more January."

Yang raises an eyebrow and smiles at her sister's repertoire of asserting somewhat irrelevant information. "If you're not going to be useful, Rubes, you can get out of my room."

Her sister flattens her smile in understanding and nods, giving Yang a thumbs-up and turning about the open door. "Dad's making breakfast by the way, so you'd better hurry up." The door shuts gently behind her, and Yang is left in a cold silence for a moment.

As she collects her scattered thoughts, another gust blows in and throws a pinned poster from the wall. She really needed to close that window.

Swinging her legs over the side of her bed with a roll of the eyes, Yang rustles a hand through her bed-hair and swipes for the phone that sits on her bedside cabinet.

'7:40'

'4°C'

She blows a sound of surprise from her mouth. It was a Monday, near-freezing outside, and the day that she had to cough up. She was still wrestling with herself over if the offer of _matching_ the pay Raven gave Jaune was a good idea in the first place; a hundred lien _was_ quite a bit out of her savings pot, but then again it _had_ bought her a weekend of something other than sitting at home, and Jaune's initial encounter with Raven was a story she'd remember for the rest of her life.

She shrugged to herself. If she was being honest, a deal was after all a deal, and Jaune had pulled through a great deal better than Yang had expected. She had the infamous 'Arc spirit' to blame for that. So, in good spirit and all, she yanked a stiff cabinet drawer open and, pushing an assortment of varying items aside, stripped two fifty lien notes from a pile that was held together with elastic.

She slid them both into the same hand that held her phone, and stood from her bed to deal with her newly found clothing problem.

It really was cold outside, which meant she would have to take to wearing something a tad warmer for today. Shorts had always served her well, but given the occasional blast of wind that shook her window back and forth, Yang thought it wiser to wear something that went past the common skin border of her middle thigh. Windburn was a cruel mistress.

So, full-length legwear? No problem for Yang Xiao-Long. She'll just wear... "Jeans." A lengthy gaze at her sizeable modular wardrobe, that was assorted more with the likes of summer shorts, cropped jackets and undershirts, reveals nothing else. That's all she really had for the cold. She shrugs, reaching for a folded pair of denims, a compromise of a jacket and accompanying undershirt, and a set of undergarments from her half-open drawer. "Can't go wrong with jeans."

Before she turns to leave, the window, now wide open, shakes once more with a gust. "My God..." Her patience cracks, and Yang steps over and slams the frame with strength, turning the lock shut. The airflow immediately settles, and a sense of warmth slowly begins to return.

Satisfied with the restored state of her room, she heads for the door to search for her morning shower, taking a quick glance into the full body mirror that sits on the wider side-wall as she walks past. Looking good, Yang. "Looking good..."

* * *

"There she is." Tai is sat on one of the living-room couches, indulging in a tea-cake and today's televised newsread. "Sleep well?"

His older, more unhinged daughter sits herself on the arm of the same couch and runs a hand through her drying hair. "I was sleeping fine until a certain little sister." She moves a loose bang from infront of her eye. "But apart from that... yeah, I did, thanks."

Tai grins, shrugging and turning to read the scroll of news headlines that flash on the television. "I told her to wake you up. No hard feelings."

Yang thins her lips. "Hmm, and Mom told her to open my window."

"She's convinced that you can't breathe in there." He takes another bite of tea-cake. "I don't blame her - it's like walking into a furnace sometimes."

She tilts her head. "Why are you going into my room?"

"To do your laundry." He swallows his chewed piece of tea-cake and points at her. "I do a lot of things for you behind the scenes, you know."

He only receives a shrug in response. "I like my room warm, as it should be."

"It's a sweatshop."

"It's called room temperature. Get with it."

Tai laughs. "I don't get you." He lifts his tea cake up in question. "You go outside and freeze in hotpants, and then you come home and boil yourself alive in your room."

"They're not hotpants, thank you very much, they're _slightly_ longer than that." Yang lifts a demin dressed leg up and waves a hand in showcase. "And anyway, lo and behold, I'm wearing jeans today."

Her dad widens his eyes in faux surprise. "Hm... I noticed." He points. "Need I remind you that those are a year old, and I've seen you in them about... three times?"

She only shrugs, admiring the near factory-new woven pattern of the denim with a finger. "Still fit me."

"And they suit you too." He slumps further into his seat. "You should wear them more often."

She glances at him. "What, because they hide my skin?"

"Yes." He takes a final bite of his tea-cake, and places the plate that was held underneath on his lap, rubbing his hands free of any excess crumbs. "They keep _you_ warm, and keep _me_ from fretting."

She makes a mixed look of pity and amusement. "You worry about me too much."

"I'm your father, it's my job."

Yang only sniggers. "I can worry about myself."

He makes a noise of doubt, changing onto a more important subject of the hour. "Your breakfast's in the kitchen." He holds his plate towards her. "Put that in the sink for me, would you?"

Yang smiles and takes the plate in one hand, jumping carefully from her couch-based perch. "What'd you make me?"

"Scrambled eggs and bacon, plenty of pepper. Your favourite."

In a hunger-fueled stride, Yang paces towards and into the kitchen, plate in hand and food on mind. Once she's past the doorway and in range of the sink, she effectively launches the small plate at it, and it clatters and splashes through other crockery and the small reservoir of water that remains in the washing bowl. But to some miracle, it remains unbroken, so Yang's done her job right.

"Good morning, Yang." Summer, dressed herself in jeans and a sweater, not even facing Yang, is fishing for something in the fridge.

Yang raises an eyebrow at the quick greeting. "How did you know it was me?"

The woman turns to her right with an endearing smile. "Well, there was a loud crash... and then some footsteps." She shrugs. "I figured from there."

Yang hums to herself. "Is my breakfast in here?"

She points to the oven. "I put it in there." She returns to her fridge raid. "Stops Zwei from getting to it."

Yang swings the pristine oven door downwards quickly, grabbing the still warm plate that sits inside by its edge and pulling it from its home carefully. She looks back to Summer with a stifled laugh, who makes a noise of cold pain. "What're you doing?"

Summer is very similar to Ruby in her personality, and she dons a similar face of frustration as she pulls her hand from the fridge and rubs it gently. "Well... I made a smoothie for today, and Tai's gone and moved everything about." She leans down further, examining the arrangement of the fridge. "And now it's at the very back." She groans, extending her arm out yet again.

Yang fishes a fork from a small holder. "You want me to get it?"

And, just like Ruby, when presented with the prospect of burdening someone else, her frustration vanishes. "Oh-! No. No, sweetie, I'm fine." She smiles reassuringly at Yang. "Honest. Go enjoy your breakfast."

Yang splits a segment of egg from the scrambled mountain with her fork and shrugs with a smirk. "Right..." She takes a bite of yellow-fluffy goodness that's mixed in perfectly with a hit of pepper, and heads to the living room to treasure the half-an-hour she still has before school. "I'll see you later."

Summer only makes a strained noise in response, and something glass and heavy crashes from inside the kitchen.

* * *

"Where's my money?"

"I don't know."

"Yang, you owe me a hundred lien." He says the words slowly, but there's no patience in his voice because he suspected she would try to pull something like this. "Give me my money."

Yang bites her bottom lip in thought, trying to find a way to worm herself out in the last moment. It's always worth a try. "How about I give you fifty and do you a favour, or somethin'?"

"No. Give me my hundred lien."

"Fifty and a kiss."

The boy shakes his head. "Still no."

She points two adjacent fingers at Jaune. "Yeah, but you thought about it."

Jaune's expression falls stern. "Give me my hundred, Yang. I earned it fair and square."

She scoffs. "You're being square alright."

"Yang..."

Violet eyes roll, and she huffs a sigh of defeat. Shoving a hand coarsely down a small denim pocket, made all the harder by her seating position, she fishes out both fifty lien notes, scrumpling them slightly in jestful spite and handing them over. "I hope you're happy."

"Well..." His words are spoken with a grin, and Jaune tilts his head slightly as he admires the two notes. "Yeah, I am actually. Pretty happy."

Yang tongues the side of her mouth. "Well. You've just made me bankrupt."

A brow raises in doubt. "Have I now?"

"Yes."

The boy laughs. "You're telling me you'd risk _all _of your money before Christmas on a dare?"

She places a her chin in a hand and winks. "Only for you."

Jaune makes a noise of faux belief with widened eyes, and stuffs his newly obtained cash into his own pocket. "Well, you've just made my Christmas." He pats the table with one hand in a farewell. "I'll see you two later." He clambers from his seat at the canteen table and leaves the two with a joyful stride.

Yang watches him go for a moment with a turn of the head, then she looks back to her last remaining accomplice. "Was that a bad idea?"

Blake looks up from her worn paperback book. "The dare?"

Yang looks at her in question for a moment. "Yes, Blake, the dare."

"Well..." She goes silent for a moment, and then silent for good and the rate at which her eyes dart along the page increases exponentially. Her mouth flicks into a slight smile.

Yang frowns, clicking infront of her eyes. "Blake? You were saying?"

Amber eyes flash with apology, and she looks up from the text. "Right, sorry... it's just..." She points at something in her book, but she can tell Yang isn't interested and moves past it. "Well, it is Jaune we're talking about." She closes her book slightly. "You challenged the 'Arc spirit'..." She mumbles the words satirically. "And it didn't really sound like much of a dare to me." The book opens again. Blake seemingly can't resist whatever she's reading.

Yang gazes into the distance, thinking on Blake's words. "Hmm." She bites at her lip. "What did you get in the literature test?"

"Full marks."

Her 'bestie', as Yang puts it, scoffs. "Of course you did." She glanced at the girl. "All you do is read."

Blake shrugs. "And what did you get?"

"Guess."

"Twenty-five."

"Blake..." Yang speaks with an offended tone. "Your expectations offend me."

"Sorry... thirty?"

Yang shakes her head. "Twenty-two." The girl huffs. "I don't really get literature. I get it enough to not be an idiot, but I don't understand how people like you and Weiss just land full marks all the time."

"That's because you're not reading in between the lines."

Yang narrows her eyes. "There's nothing in between the lines, it's blank space."

"I mean metaphorically - deciphering something implicit from the explicit."

Yang's mouth hangs open for a moment, and she shakes her head slowly at Blake. "I still don't know what that means." Who doesn't respond, so Yang pokes her on the shoulder. "Let me have a go at your book then, I'll try reading between the lines."

Blake grows slightly unsure and more reserved than normal, pulling the paperback towards her chest. "Um..." She thins her lips with a careful smile. "Maybe not this one. You probably wouldn't... understand it."

Yang scoffs. "Are you implying that I'm stupid?"

Amber eyes narrow for a moment in confusion, and she very nearly laughs. "What?" She closes the book and gestures with it. "No, it's just..."

Before Yang can press her any harder, a rattle of a school bell sounds throughout the canteen and disrupts the two. Yang's previously 'offended' face plummets into a smirk, and she climbs from her seat awkwardly, not used to the movement limitations that come with jeans. "What've we got now, oh-wise-one?"

Blake rubs the strain from an eye from her reading, racking her mind for the timetable she holds in there. "History, I believe."

Yang makes a unconvincing noise of excitement. "Mmm, my favourite."

* * *

History lessons typically teach themselves. All that's required of a student is to copy down the initial notes from the start of the lesson, and from there anything else that one finds necessary to take in can be done so through Professor Port's extensive recital of the subject matter, up to whatever capacity that it pertains to him, that is.

Nevertheless, History still holds a strong rating in terms of student term performance and final grades, and the lessons manage such a balance of doing nothing and learning that it isn't considered a subjectively bad lesson amongst students.

As much of a drone as Port's anecdotes of his life as a historian can be.

Jaune has his phone laid flat on his notebook, and an open textbook open infront blocks it just enough so that Port can't see it. Not that he notices Jaune much anyway; he sits so far back in the lecture room that he's unsure if Port's vision even goes that far. Besides, having taken the notes and recorded the homework, Jaune isn't under obligation to do much else.

"What did you get?" Pyrrha, a close friend of his and one of the few people he's comfortable in placing his faith in, is sat next to him. She's taking notes compulsively, but she still has enough room in her brain to both talk and listen to Jaune.

The blonde boy looks up from his phone for a glancing moment. "Twenty-nine." He huffs, shaking his head yet continuing to tap on the flat screen. "You're literally tutoring me, and I'm still two grades below you."

Sympathetic emerald glances at him for a moment. "You're improving though, wouldn't you say?" The note-taking persists. "And you shouldn't attribute it all to me, you've worked hard yourself."

Jaune hums in agreement. Not to toot his own horn, per se, but he's certainly been putting in effort and then some recently; literature is probably the only subject he actually enjoys.

When it comes to the contrast of seemingly natural ability and exhausting effort though, Jaune doesn't understand Pyrrha. You're telling him she's kind-hearted, intelligent, athletic, and strong-willed? As far as he knows, she has no flaws.

She's also drop dead gorgeous, but Jaune doesn't know how much jurisdiction he has to comment on something like that.

It's under those reasons that he doesn't understand how they're even friends, but they seemingly click and he kind of treasures their time together.

In the short silence, his thoughts jump from the girl next to him to his conversation with Violet and Saphron from yesterday. To the only normal part, obviously.

"Pyrrha?"

Even the mention of her name doesn't break her notes. "Mhm?"

Jaune doesn't want to come across as instrusive or, worse, offended, so he keeps to looking at his phone and maintains a casual tone. "Have you got a brother?"

That does stop it, and although Pyrrha certainly doesn't look concerned or uncomfortable for the most part, Jaune still feels a bit guilty.

"Uh, yeah, actually." She giggles, turning a dash of pink, and the sweet tone of both the giggle and the way her eyes brighten shatters Jaune's worries and his breathing softens. "How do you know that?"

He gestures into the air. "Uh... my sister knows him. She goes to Vale uni."

Unexpected to Jaune, she seemingly lightens up at the mention of her family. Unbeknownst to Jaune, she's relishing in the fact he's taken interest to something personal of hers. "Yeah, he was at Mistral for a while. I'm sorry I didn't... bring it up or anything."

Jaune turns his phone off as the topic pulls him away from it, and he slides it underneath his notebook for safekeeping. He slouches back into his place on the bench, and turns to face her. "You don't have to be sorry." He laughs. "It was just a surprise is all, after how much I go on about my sisters."

She nods. "What did she say about him?"

Jaune grins. "Said he was an ass."

"Oh." She stifles a laugh, and tilts her head back and forth in reasoning. "Yeah... he's a bit 'out there'." She nods. "But he is really sweet. Promise."

He clears his throat. "Why was he at Mistral if you guys live near Vale?" He pauses for a moment. "I hope you don't mind me asking."

She smiles. "I don't mind." Her explanation is preceded by a shrug. "Him and mom didn't get on that well for a while, just one of those things, so he headed for Mistral instead to get away from it. They've kind of made up now, I think. " She smiles again in reminiscence. "But he always came home for Christmas and birthdays, so it wasn't so bad, _and _I got to go up to Mistral every now and then to visit him. It's beautiful there."

Jaune nods, tonguing his mouth in thought. "Aren't you Mistralian?"

"Well..." She makes a so-so gesture. "I'm half; my dad was from Vacuo, my mom's from Mistral."

"Vacuo?" Jaune raises an eyebrow. A more distant part of the world that he's never had the grace of visiting. "Isn't that the place with no laws or something?"

Pyrrha flattens her eyelids in disbelief. "That's a myth, Jaune, they definitely have laws there."

The boy goes slightly pink in embarrassment, rubbing the back of his neck. "Oh... they do?"

His red-headed accomplice giggles with a nod. "It's just that there was a bill in parliament a few decades back that tried to have a lot of laws revoked to 'benefit freedoms'." She shrugs. "It never passed, and that government's long gone. But that's where it came from."

"Right." Jaune nodded. "History."

Pyrrha bites her tongue in between her teeth, holding back a laugh. "Mhm." She fiddles with the pen in between her fingers, thinking for a moment over her own words that she fears will backfire. "Listen, I know we normally revise together in the library and all, but do you think you'd like to come to mine a couple of times over the holidays and do some revision... or something?" She thins her lips to calm her nerves. "You don't have to, I just thought we could do it for the practice exams after Christmas."

Jaune only smiles back and nods, clearly not picking up on the fact that Pyrrha is shaking with her heartbeat. "Yeah, actually, that's not a bad idea." He thinks to his calendar. "How about this Saturday and then... I dunno... whenever after Christmas?"

Emerald eyes glisten with glee at Jaune's acceptance. "Great!" She clears her throat. "Yeah, that's great."

_'As cool as ice, Pyrrha.' _She thinks to herself with an absurd smile. Her blood is riddled with adrenaline from her success, and she tries to contain it as much as she can. _'Cool as ice.'_

A worn bellow of a voice from the front breaks her thoughts, and the accompanying, relatively quiet bell, sounds the end of the lesson. "That is all for today, if you have any questions on Mistralian diplomacy then you can ask me after." Port rubs the paragraph of markered text from the whiteboard behind him. "Though I have no doubt you all know plenty anyway." He drops the rubber to his desk and takes a sighing seat at the wooden structure. "There will be _no_ homework this lesson or next - think of it as an early Christmas present from me. Class dismissed."

* * *

The canteen is colder than it was at morning break, it's either because are there hasn't been time sufficient time to heat the vast hall, or because someone left one of the many windows open over third period.

Either way one looks at it, it's quite cold, and Yang's certainly relieved that jeans were her choice today.

Yang, having finished her lunch and now fiddling with a wiltering pot of jelly, thinks to one of the newest opporunities of late adolescence. "Does no-one find it weird that none of us have a car?"

The raven-haired girl, once again next to her and reading the same book as before, though now a number of pages past her last point, hums in indifference. "There's not really much point around here, though."

Weiss, opposite to Blake, nods in agreement. "She's right. This place is filled with buses, trams, trains." She stabs a piece of chicken from her pot of pasta. "And the city is so busy you'd just get stuck in traffic."

Yang's face makes a look of objection. "Yeah, but, it's a car. Don't you think it'd be great to drive your _own _car?"

Weiss nods slowly. "Yes, but you're effectively wasting your money."

"But it's a _car_." She sticks with the same, not so evidential point. "You're free to do what you want."

"But it isn't economic." Weiss rests her fork inside the pot. "There's so much public transport around here, that's actually _good, _that there isn't any point."

"I've got my license." Blake turns a page in her paperback, presenting a new piece to the discussion. "Just, haven't got a car."

"Yeah, I've got my license." Yang scratches an itch on her knee that lies beneath denim. "I feel like I should get a car, though."

Weiss only shrugs dismissively, forking about for a few remaining pieces of pasta. "I would advise against it. My sister bought a car and she says she regrets it, she sold it two years after."

Yang narrows her eyes. "Yes, Weiss, but she lives in Atlas, in one of the most densely populated cities in the world."

"And we live in, or atleast around, the_ third_ most densely populated city district in the world." She continues her point. "A car would only be useful if you lived in the northern suburb or the rural outskirts."

The blonde napalm shrugs, sighing. "And once again, Weiss has deconstructed the fun in life." Yang stretches her legs out underneath the table, knocking Weiss' and eliciting a frozen glare. Yang only smiles. "I think Ruby's going to get a car."

Blake looks up from her book for a moment. "Really?"

Yang nods. "Mhm... she's become a bit of a petrol-head." She seals the lid back on her jelly and leaves the remains for the bin. "Goes out with my mom to practice driving in some car park every weekend now. Wants to learn how to drive early." Yang points. "Do you have your license, Weiss?"

Only a mumble comes from the heiress. "Not yet."

"So you can't drive?"

Weiss clears her throat. "Not legally."

Yang thins her lips with a teasing smile. "And you could figure it out, could you?"

"I'm certain I could."

Just as Weiss' mutter of defeat closes, and she returns to her work, a certain blonde boy holding a meager plate of a wholegrain wrap walks aside the table.

"Uh, is it alright if I sit with you lot?" He smiles inoffensively, gesturing behind him. "I got held back at art club... and now I've only got like ten minutes to have my lunch before fourth period."

Yang smiles at the new arrival, making a decision for the rest of them. "Of course it is, take a seat young Arc."

The boy looks to the seat opposite her that she gestures at, but Weiss holds her ground and tries to pretend there's no reason to move.

A kick from Yang awakens Weiss from her studying. "Uh, Weiss? Move up."

"Wha-?" She frowns at both Yang and Jaune. "Can't you just go around?"

"Uh... have some manners, Weiss." The blonde girl glares at her.

The heiress sighs, seeing that there's no point in fighting this one, pushes her pasta pot and notebook along to the adjacent seat that sits opposite Blake. She shifts along, and Jaune hastily takes her place as he picks the wrap up to take a bite.

"It's good your here, actually." Jaune looks up hopefully at Yang in response, his mouth half-full with the head of a chicken and lettuce wrap. "What do you think of getting a car?"

The boy makes a look of digression, mixed with his hurried chewing. "Oh, no, that's a bad idea." He swallows, and the white-haired girl next to him lightens up for a moment at his words, looking up from her work. "You'll drive it about two miles and then get stuck in traffic. No point for a student."

The girl next to him points at Yang. "I told you. What did I say?"

Violet eyes roll. "Alright, well both of you are equally boring." She looks to Jaune with a raised eyebrow. "I'm especially disappointed in you."

He laughs. "Just not worth the money." He blows a bang from his face. "Are you getting a car? I'll put a hundred towards it if you want."

Yang deflects his grin with a dismissive smile, and she shakes her head. "Nope, just think Rubes will want to at some point. Cars get her a bit... flustered."

Jaune, chewing through chicken and lettuce, makes a questioning look. "Carsexual?"

Yang smirks. "Carsexual."

Weiss makes a displeased look at the two's language. "You two are conclusively awful." She points at Yang with a ball-point pen, though her focus remains on her notebook. "I feel sorry for your sister." Then at Jaune. "And I feel sorry for all nine of yours."

Jaune throws a hand up in defense, though he still holds his wrap and some half-chewed lettuce flies out and lands on Weiss' notebook. "It's me you should feel sorry for." He doesn't know what Weiss would think when met with someone like Violet.

Weiss, frowning at the green intruder, flicks it away and shifts slightly along her seat, muttering despairingly. "I find that very hard to believe." Hoping to return to her work for good, she finds peace in the cursive black of her writing and the expanse of knowledge that the phone-displayed textbook provides to-

"Stop."

She fastens herself to ignore the interruption, but her trance, only seconds old, slips slightly. Her writing hand stiffens, attempting to mantain her handwriting and quickly regain her composure.

"Stop."

The steadfast girl feels her patience loosening.

"Yang, stop."

An eyelid twitches.

The boy next to her laughs a strained breath, and the arm that reaches under the table to grab something clatters with it and sends it shaking. Weiss' pen moves with it and a mishap of ink strikes downwards, ruining her perfect writing. "Yang, honestly, stop."

Weiss has to stop writing for a moment to let herself breathe.

"Yang." He tries to catch his breath. "Shit - my arm really hurts... s-stop!" Jaune laughs again, and he jolts to the side in an irritated snap.

Weiss plants her pen to the table. "Okay, what are you two doing? I mean, honestly, what are you two doing now?"

The boy catches his breath completely this time. "She keeps stroking her leg u-" Air escapes his lungs again. "Stop, Yang!"

The agitated girl frowns. "So you're playing footsie."

"No..." He gestures at the grinning blonde opposite him. "She's just..."

Yang makes a look of innocence. "I'm not doing anything."

"Really? So he's having a fit over nothing?" A snarl from the heiress breaks the blonde's mask. "Take him home and play with him, Yang, not infront of me."

Jaune coughs slightly on his wrap, and Yang makes an incredulous look at Weiss. "Chill, princess. You're being a prude."

Icy eyes narrow, and she looks to the quiet reader. "Doesn't this bother you, Blake?"

Amber eyes glance up from text, evidently clueless. "What?"

The girl breathes a sigh. "Nothing." Her words end with the shaking of her head, and an afternoon bell rings in the distance. "Nothing."


	6. Anticipations

**/ - **New chapter.

Hope you enjoy.

* * *

It's a Wednesday afternoon in the Xiao-Long-Rose household. School has just ended, and two young, academically fatigued students have taken to lounging about, as expected.

"That... is so much better." A tired yet fire-spirited girl gasps a sigh of joy, flopping onto cool sofa fabric, having just removed her third pair of denims and swapping them for a looser pair of sport shorts. "Sweet relief."

Once the time had come when Yang was no longer required to wear the demons that wrapped her legs, she had darted to her bedroom as casually but quickly as possible, thrown them off, and hurried for anything that didn't endanger the precious blood supply her legs so dearly needed. She had had a rough few days, each one requiring she wear jeans for the benefit of warmth, and while they did their job very well, Yang was growing sick of them.

Ruby glances at her sister with an amused look, still wearing her own. "You're really not good with jeans."

"I hate the things." She stretches her legs out, soothing the skin with a few quick rubs. "Squeeze the life out of me. Pretty sure they're making my butt smaller, too."

"Maybe they don't fit you?"

"Maybe." She pushes trapped hair out from behind her head, and a cool breeze of air rushes past her neck. "But I can't be bothered to buy any new ones." Nor could she exactly expense it.

"Because you'd never wear them?"

"Yeah..." She tilts her head to look at her sister. "You hungry?"

Ruby shakes her head, still typing away on her phone.

"Alright." She mutters to herself, taking ease in her duty to do nothing. She also takes advantage in the short absence of Tai, and props her feet up on the intricate birch-glass coffee table opposite her couch. "Who're you taking to?"

"No-one."

"Hm." That can only mean one other thing. "Looking at cars?"

An ephemeral smile flashes on her sister's face. "Maybe."

"Ahem. Feet off the table." Tai emerges from the kitchen doorway, and despite his distance immediately locks onto what he doesn't like about Yang's setup. "Who knows where they've been."

She shifts her feet reluctantly. "Who knows where your coffee table's been."

"I clean that thing every week, and so does your mother." He kneels behind the couch Ruby sits on, peering over the top. "Have some respect."

As he looks down to his youngest daughter, sat in-front of him and clued out, there are scrolling images of cars and vast lists of numbers and designations that go by so fast he wonders how Ruby even keeps up. He fiddles with a strand of black-red hair lovingly. "How's my tame racing driver doing?"

The girl shifts her head forward in embarrassment, though her face shows a melted smile, and the strand of hair in Tai's hold slips. "I'm fine..."

"Buying yourself a car now, are you?"

"No." She shifts in her seat. "Just looking."

Yang, taking advantage of being on the subject of cars and the fact she actually has a driving license, tries her own luck. "Can I get a car, dad?"

"Nope." He shoots it down quickly, and looks at Yang apologetically. "Bad investment."

Violet eyes aren't convinced. "It just isn't though."

"Yang, you have a metro pass. You don't need a car." He narrows his eyes with a smirk. "Here's an anecdote from an adult who actually drives around the area you'd be going; you'd go about... two miles, and then get stuck in traffic. That's it."

She's hit the same stump Weiss served her the other day, but she recalls an objection she'd manifested a while later and tries it now. "Fine then, how about a motorbike? You can just go through it all down the middle of the road. Problem solved." Yang's logic is sound, but she forgets she's talking to her father.

He scoffs in disbelief. "There is no way you're having a bike." Deathtraps. "Just save your money, Yang. Don't throw away your trust fund on a car."

Tai shakes his head at his oldest's attitude, attending to the nagging thought in his mind that he was here to say something else.

Oh, right.

"Oh, there was actually something I was going to tell you two." He stands up, leaning on arms that are planted on the back of the couch. "Qrow's been organising a Christmas 'party', it's a family thing - so you two are absolutely invited, no questions asked." He tilts his head. "It's also happening here, so there's no escaping it anyway." Thinking to the back of his mind, he pulls a date forward. "Think it's happening on the 23rd, which is this Sunday."

Yang fiddles somewhat unsurely with a loose string of white fabric that dangles from her t-shirt. "How much of a family thing?"

"Whole family." He nods. "So, Raven is coming too."

The fiddling stops, and Yang's hand comes to run through her hair. "Well, that sounds like a great idea."

"Don't be so pessimistic, alright? It's Christmas."

The younger girl on the other couch speaks up, bringing a more innocent touch to the conversation. "Does mom like Raven?"

Tai makes a strained look behind Ruby, pulling at his t-shirt collar jokingly, eliciting a snort from Yang. "Well... did I ever tell you they used to be best friends?"

"You've never told us that." The blonde in the corner hums sarcastically. He's brought it up many times, but it doesn't really answer Ruby's question of current affairs. "I presume that was until you came into the picture?"

Tai makes a jestful scowl at Yang, who only smiles back. Ruby, still engrossed by four-wheel-drive sports cars, doesn't notice the exchange, and her dad ruffles a hand through her hair. "Don't tell them I said that, alright?."

Ruby nods, finally looking up from her phone, bending her neck all the way back to look straight up at him. "Can you make me something to eat?"

He's taken aback slightly by the quickly shifting attention-span, but he takes the request willingly. "Uh, sure, what do you want?"

She shrugs. "Just whatever there is."

'Whatever'. Tai can work with that. "You got it." He turns on a heel with an embarrassing show of finger guns, heading for the kitchen.

Yang whines from her lax seating. "I just asked if you were hungry, Rubes."

"Well, I wasn't back then."

"That was less than _five minutes ago._" She frowns in jest. "You don't like my cooking?"

Remembering his other daughter, Tai peers around the kitchen doorway, cutting her off in the process. "You want anything, Yang?"

She only waves him off in response, sighing. "I'm fine."

* * *

_"...yeah, Ren's going on holiday for the full two weeks, which means, alas, I will be all alone."_

"Where's he going?"

_"He's visiting his family."_

"Are you going to be okay?"

A laugh rattles the connection down the phone. "_Of course I'm going to be alright, dummy. I was... y'know, in a home, for three years, and Ren's been on holiday before. No need to worry for the almighty Nora."_

"Well, if you ever need to speak to someone, or somewhere to sleep, you can always come to mine, you know." Jaune smiles at Nora's unwavering optimism. "We should have a free couch or two."

Jaune felt genuinely sorry for Nora. She's a joyous, bouncy girl who's full of the spirit of life, but somehow her life story was both the opposite and gruesomely complicated. To put it softly, and as far as she had shared, she lost both her parents at twelve from a car-crash, which, with no immediate next of kin, had launched her into foster care, which in itself only led to being juggled between homes and different people. An equally traumatic experience.

It made sense then that, once she was fifteen, sick of it all and wanting a new start, she had taken the immediate opportunity of an academy education by throwing everything she had at earning a place at Beacon.

Which was both a blessing and wise choice on her part, because not only did she meet Ren during the process, her now roommate and seemingly soulmate, but upon acceptance, Beacon provides a bursary care fund for 'disadvantaged' students, which carries all the way until you could make it into university. For Nora, that meant financial support, guaranteed on-site living space if she ever needed it, and legal representation that permit her to things a teenager normally wouldn't have.

But, being Nora, she had decided to go further, and between acting on her legal benefits, part-time jobs and equal effort from Ren, who found himself in a similar position by having to leave _his_ family behind to benefit from his own acceptance into Beacon, she had managed to land herself a two-bedroom, cosy apartment in the city.

Which made Jaune a bit jealous.

The apartment, that is.

He can almost hear her own smile in the voice that comes whistling down the other line. _"You're so sweet." _

"Are you ever going to meet Ren's parents?"

There's a sharp silence for a moment. "_I dunno."_

"Nora..."

"_I don't know!" _She laughs, but it's slightly nervous. _"Don't ask me stuff like that."_

Jaune only sniggers, and Nora whispers something about him shutting his mouth.

Jaune plays with the clean duvet that he sits on, but Nora pipes up soon after. _"__Hey, a little birdie told me you're going to Pyrrha's on Saturday." _

He nods, even though Nora can't see it. "Yeah, we're doing revision for the practice exams after Christmas."

_"Are you?"_

She's always pushed Jaune and Pyrrha together, and as much as it makes Jaune it uncomfortable, he's noticed it bothers Pyrrha too, so he tries to deflate her attempts as much as he can. "Yes, Nora."

_"Alright..." _He can hear her smile again. "_I'll take your word for it."_

He flips the subject quickly. "Did you know she had a brother?"

_"Oh, yeah." _Nora's tone is proud. _"Sh__e told me a while back." _

Jaune blows air from his mouth. "I only just found out, inadvertently at that."

"_Well__, that's sisters before misters for you."_

Jaune rolls his eyes. "Have you met him?"

_"Nope. I_ did _see__ him at the park last week, though."_

"Are you sure it was him?"

_"Jaune, he had red hair, green eyes, and he was tall. Who else could possibly have those genes?" _A knock sounds from Nora's end of the line, interrupting her. _"Oh! Um, that must be our pizza, I'll talk to you tomorrow."_

The boy clears his throat, nodding out-of-view once more. "Alright, see-ya."

_"Bye~." _

The call goes dead with a beep, and Jaune sits with the phone held same for a moment. He had hoped to be speaking to her for a while longer, sitting at home got boring, but she clearly had her own plans and he wasn't going to ruin them. He throws his phone to the end of his bed in defeat, flops backwards, and though he remains oblivious, his head just narrowly misses the wall it sits against. He huffs a worn breath from his lungs, gazing at the flat white paint-job that adorns his ceiling in boredom.

Just as he opts to lie there and hopefully drift to sleep, his phone buzzes again, persisting in the rhythmic style of an incoming call. He leans over and swipes it up, taking note of the name.

'Yang'

"Hello?"

_"Hey."_

"Hey."

_"Hey."_

There's a break of silence, and Jaune has to restart his brain.

He clears his throat. "Uh... you called me?"

_"Yeah, yeah."_ Yang pauses for a moment. _"So_,_ me and Ruby are taking Zwei for a walk when our mom gets home, which'll be at around five. You wanna come with us?"_

He perks up at the offer. "Sure, anything to get me out of the house."

_"Great. Park at ten past, alright?"_

"Yeah, sure."

_"Sweet. Don't be late - Zwei waits for no man."  
_

* * *

When ten minutes past five comes finally around, the forecast has improved and there's a generous showing of unclouded winter sun that helps to keep the air warm.

Jaune turns a corner around a mossed brick wall, one of many in this park, when he finally spots his three accomplices. Ruby, standing next to a bench across which Yang is laid length-ways along, seemingly sunbathing, spots him almost immediately, and she greets him with a beaming smile and a wave. She mutters something to her sister, who darts up and throws the sunglasses from her head, revealing surprised eyes.

She leans down to the floor from her seated position to reclaim them as Jaune waves back, and she calls out with an impressed look. "You're on time."

Jaune holds his words back until he's in speaking distance of the two, but he returns her look with an offended one of his own. "Yeah, of course I am." Yang returns the shades to her head, pushing them up to sit atop it. "Why are you wearing sunglasses?"

She gestures to the sky. "It's sunny."

He chuckles through his words. "Yang, it's winter." He looks to her clothing, and she's even dressed in a pair of sport shorts. "You're dressed for summer."

"It's warm, my phone says it's fourteen degrees out." She stretches her back that's grown stiff from the wood of the bench. "If it's above ten, then it's warm enough to wear clothes I actually like."

Jaune looks to Ruby, who's dressed in a red raincoat, t-shirt and jeans, and she returns his disbelief with a shrug. "I don't get her either." She speaks to the both of them. "But Zwei's getting antsy, so we'd better get moving." The lead she holds onto jangles with anticipation as the dog of the hour paces back and forth.

Yang clears her throat and stands up. "Alright." She pats Jaune on the back, egging him onwards. "Forward march, then."

* * *

Yang and Jaune are set near a different, more comfortable bench that sits near to the edge of a small lake that's decorated with patchy gatherings of vegetation and debris, but holds a clear stretch of water down the middle that the two are throwing stones across.

"My family are having some Christmas get-together on Sunday."

"Oh yeah?"

Violet eyes are slightly dim. "Yeah."

"What's up with that? Sounds like fun."

A widening of eyes indicates Yang feels different about it. "Well, Raven's coming too."

Jaune looks at her for a moment, but he still doesn't see the problem that she does. "I thought you two were on good terms?"

"Yeah, we are. But I'm sure there's going to be some problem anyway."

"You're one-hundred percent certain?"

She nods.

"Yang, come-on, you can't predict the future."

She smirks cruelly. "Yeah, but I can know my own mother enough to know what'll happen." There's a shrug, and a coursing of stress brings forward more words. "And even if she isn't the problem, there's plenty of broiling drama there just incase."

"There is?"

She rolls her eyes. "Raven was with my dad, then she had me, then she _bolted. _Then my dad got with Summer, she had Ruby, and now there's going to be a Christmas party with all of us fifteen years on. And if that isn't enough, Raven and Summer used to be best friends."

"That last one sounds more like a good thing."

"How?"

"Because there's more to link them than the fact they were with your dad at some point. If they were best friends, then they'll have plenty of other history together, right?"

She fiddles with another small stone. "I guess."

Jaune holds his confident tone. "Yeah, so no problem."

"Okay, well my mom's a chronic anti-social, how is she going to manage?"

"She'll manage fine." He throws his stone, but it doesn't quite make the distance Yang set earlier. "She's with her family, half of whom are her childhood friends."

Yang tongues the side of her mouth, trying to find a new problem she can pity over than Jaune won't stamp out. "Alright, well what am I going to do? I'm going to be bored stiff."

He shrugs. "You could come to mine if you want." But as the words leave his mouth, he thinks to his sisters. "No. No, maybe don't come to mine." He ponders for a moment. "You could go to Blake's. You go to hers all the time, right?"

"My dad says I'm obliged to stay." She launches the stone as far as she can into the lake. "No way I'm getting out of it."

Jaune sighs in fatigue of the discussion, searching for a more aerodynamic stone in the floor of many that lay at his feet. "Stop worrying about it, Yang." He picks out a stone that's curved and gray. "If it's really so bad, you can call me when it's over and tell me you told me so." He launches it into the lake. "And if it's actually good, you can thank your lucky stars I was right."

Yang can't help but smile at him, and she bites her tongue in between her teeth to stifle a laugh. She shakes her head. "Alright. I'll trust in you, then." She jabs a finger at him. "But if it really does turn sour, then it's over for you."

Having watched his stone once again not breach Yang's record, Jaune flops down onto the similarly old bench the two are stood infront of. He smiles at her in a glance. "Whatever you say."

Taking pleasure in his capitulation, Yang takes a seat next to the boy and flicks her own stone at him. It hits his neck at a glance, eliciting a momentary glare of blue. "What're your plans for the holiday, then?"

"Well..." He leans back into the bench, although it doesn't exactly mould to his form. "I'll be putting your money to good use for a start."

Yang licks her lips in amusement. "Right. Thinking of buying me anything?"

Jaune shakes his head in a mocking solemn. "I'm afraid you aren't factored into my financial calculations."

She scoffs. "Well, it's good to see how much you value our relationship."

"I apologise, dearest." He dons a regal expression. "And what were you going to buy me in return for the vast amount of gifts I presumably bought for you?"

She shrugs, breaking Jaune's regal act with a cruder one of her own. "Nothing, I was just going to blow you the morning after as a thanks."

Jaune shakes his head in response. "Good one."

Yang snorts at him. "You know when a girl actually becomes sexually interested in you, what are you _really_ going to do?" She makes a jolted motion. "Are you just going to freeze up like a tortoise and play dead until she leaves you alone?"

He runs his hand through locks of blonde awkwardly, moving bangs that had come loose in the wind from his face. "Very funny."

She tries a bit further. "Or is it just me? Are you secretly obsessed with me?"

He looks at her incredulously, still a dash pink. "You're the one that takes it too far. I would say you're obsessed with me."

"Well, I've got a real thing for blonde idiots then."

"Which is why you're so full of yourself, I presume?"

She narrows her eyes at him, but she's distracted by another sight.

Ruby, pink-faced and breathless, donning an energetic smile, comes striding down the stone path that encircles the lake. Zwei, without leash and seemingly just as exercised, comes darting between her legs, shifting to a pattering jog as he approaches the two blondes.

"Here she comes." Yang grins at Ruby, who comes to a stop a few feet away with a pant. She pushes hair from her face, and gives the two a thumbs-up. Yang looks to Zwei, who's now catching his own breath on the floor. "Been on a run?"

She smiles. "Mhm, me and Zwei did an entire lap of the park." The smiles falters slightly, and she makes a displeased look. "Then he saw a squirrel, and I kinda had to chase after him. Then I almost lost him... it was a whole thing." But the smile returns. "But we're both back! Happy and healthy."

Her sister nods. "I can tell. I guess you're ready to head home now?"

Ruby nods back, and Zwei opens his eyes at the mention of home. "Oh yeah, I'm exhausted."

* * *

"Jauney."

"Hm?" Looking up from his phone, Jaune is met with the face of Saphron, who is knelt beside the couch and peering over the arm against which Jaune rests.

"Listen, I know it's kinda late." She licks her lips. "But, do you... maybe... want me to get you something for Christmas?"

"What about our agreement?"

Right. The 'agreement'. A confidential pact that Jaune, Saphron, Violet and Lavender (the third oldest daughter of the Arc family) had all made to be as economically-efficient as possible during Christmas. They would all prioritise buying presents for solely their younger sisters, who are the most reliant upon the magic of Christmas and all, and thereby get the most 'bang for their buck.'

"Yeah, but..." She shrugs. "...I've still got some money left over. You sure you don't want anything?"

Jaune shakes his head with a smile. "I'm alright."

She bites her lip in thought. This meant she'd have to buy a present for Violet, given how benevolent Lavender was - she'd rather be found dead than taking up on Saph's offer. "How about we go to the cinema on Saturday then?"

He looks at her with amusement. "The cinema?"

Saphron nods slowly. "Yeah, you used to love going to the cinema with me."

"I'm seventeen now, Saph."

She scoffs. "Oh, you're too good for me now, are you?"

The boy shakes his head at her. "Well, I can't anyway, I'm busy on Saturday."

"Since when? What are you doing?"

"I'm uh..." Jaune regrets revealing his schedule. "...just going to a friend's house."

Saphron coos, lowering her voice. "Someone giving you an early Christmas present?"

"No." He frowns at her. "We're just doing some revision for the practice exams after the holidays."

Saphron pouts. "Hmm." She shrugs. "Alright, well I hope you have fun." She stands from her knelt positions slowly, wincing slightly at the discomfort in her knees. "And don't worry, I won't tell Violet."

Jaune widens his eyes, a small rush of anxiety hitting him at the idea. He swallows. "Thanks."


End file.
